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After going ninth overall in the 2024 draft, Bears wide receiver Rome Odunze played a full 17-game rookie season. Teaming with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, the first overall pick in the class, Odunze caught 54 of 101 targets for 734 yards and three touchdowns.
There was optimism both Odunze and Williams would make significant progress in Year 2. Williams lived up to the billing and took obvious steps forward under first-year head coach/offensive guru Ben Johnson. The one-time Heisman Trophy winner helped the Bears to an 11-6 record and an NFC North title, feats he and the team achieved without Odunze anywhere close to full strength.
Odunze dealt with a stress fracture and plantar fasciitis in his left foot from October onward. The nagging foot problems limited the 6-foot-3, 214-pounder to 12 regular-season games and held him to 44 catches on 90 targets, 661 yards and six scores. Odunze then posted matching two-catch, 44-yard showings in the Bears’ playoff games – a wild-card round win over the Packers and an overtime divisional-round loss to the Rams. He had a costly opening-drive drop near the L.A. goal line. Two plays later, Williams threw an interception.
Odunze recently said he is adjusting to a “new normal” with his foot in the wake of the fracture, per Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic, but he did not require offseason surgery to fix the issue. The Bears appear confident Odunze will bounce back from the injury in 2026, having traded durable starting receiver D.J. Moore to the Bills. After shipping out Moore, the Bears made modest free agent investments in Kalif Raymond (one year, $3.5MM) and Scotty Miller (one year, $1.3MM), who are not starting-caliber receivers, and spent a third-round pick on former LSU wideout Zavion Thomas.
Odunze and promising second-year man Luther Burden will enter the season as the Bears’ clear-cut starters at the position. It will be an especially important season for Odunze, as Chicago will have to make a choice on his fifth-year option by next spring. The Bears will pick up the option and perhaps even consider an extension if Odunze stays healthy and plays up to or close to his potential this year. Otherwise, he may not have a long-term future with the Bears, who Fishbain notes have not extended one of their drafted receivers since they gave Earl Bennett a four-year deal in 2011.
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