2025 Chicago Bears Free Agent Target: Jonathan Allen

Mark Rebilas - USA Today Sports

Dustin Riese - Senior Writer - 3 hours ago

Don't look now, but the official beginning of Free Agency and the start of the NFL New Year are just two days away. You would never have guessed that based on all the action over the weekend, but none of those deals can become official until things kick off for real on Wednesday.

Once that day comes, the Bears' recent trades for Jonah Jackson and Joe Thuney can also become official, as those are just the first two of what hopes to be many more signings this offseason. Everyone knew that, coming into the offseason, especially after the Bears brought in Ben Johnson, the offensive line would be an area of focus.

That should've been the offseason focus for several years, but no one expected the Bears to be as aggressive as they were so early on by trading for two of the better players at their position. Those moves will ultimately take care of the interior portion of the Bears offensive line room and will allow the Bears to have more financial flexibility to address the rest of their needs, which is plenty.

Along with beefing up the offensive line, the Bears need to find a backup running back to D'Andre Swift, add another wide receiver to replace Keenan Allen, find more pass rush help to take the pressure off Montez Sweat and add more size to the trenches on defense. It's the final area that we will talk about today, as a new name has recently been added to the free agent pool. It's a name that the Bears floated around last season as a possible deadline deal.

According to reports obtained late last week, the Washington Commanders informed defensive tackle Jonathan Allen that he will not return to the organization and is now set to become a free agent. Given how well the Commanders played last season, that does come as a surprise, but that news instantly makes him the most coveted guy on the free agent market regarding defensive tackles.

When you look at this year's free agent class, the defense is loaded across the board, and adding Allen to that mix makes it all that much deeper.

Allen is a two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle who played a massive role on the Commanders' defense for several seasons. In the middle of last season, Washington tried to trade Allen away, but after failing to find a trade partner, they chose to move on from him and will clear nearly 17 million in cap space.

The Bears were one of those teams that inquired about Allen at the deadline last season, but they must've felt the asking price was too steep to make a deal. Here we are a few months later, and the Bears have another crack at Allen, with this one coming on their own terms as they can make Allen a great offer to choose Chicago.

For the most part, Allen has been a consistent force on the defensive end and has always been viewed as a great player. Last season was much different, as Allen was limited to just eight games and didn't do much in those eight games. He finished the season with three sacks, seven quarterback hits, and three tackles for loss. Had he played an entire season, those numbers would average out to six sacks, 15 quarterback hits, and seven tackles for a loss.

Those are solid numbers for a defensive tackle, but not great, as Allen had an overall down season in 2024. What is funny about that is seeing where Allen ranked among defensive tackles. That limited production still had him graded out as Washington's top defensive tackle, which shows how bad that area of their defense was. Compare that to the rest of the NFL, and Allen ranked 70th out of 118th defensive tackles, which won't cut it in today's game.

However, many will say that was a one-year fluke as Allen has repeatedly proven to be one of the better defensive tackles in the game when healthy, which was an issue for him last season. Across his eight-year career, Allen has notched 42 career sacks, including three seasons with at least 7.5 sacks. One of those seasons most recently came in 2022 when he had 7.5 sacks, one season after his career-high nine sacks.

It shouldn't shock you that both the 2021 and 2022 seasons were his Pro Bowl seasons, as he joined forces with Chase Young and Sweat during those years. Once Sweat was traded to the Bears in 2023 and Young left via free agency, you started to see his overall production decrease slightly as Allen was held to 8.5 sacks the past two seasons.

Putting him back on defense with a former teammate in Sweat, paired with tons of talented young players at every level, could be what he needs to get back on track. Should Allen find a way to get back to 100% and play at the levels he made most of his career, he would be a massive upgrade for the Bears defense and would take care of their physicality on the defensive line.