Bears Go All-In: Chicago Pays Two First-Round Picks For All-Pro Tackle Jeffery Simmons

CHICAGO — The Chicago Bears are going all-in. The Bears acquired All-Pro defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons from the Tennessee Titans on Thursday in the biggest trade of the NFL’s deadline season, sending Tennessee their first-round picks in 2027 and 2028 and a fourth-round pick in 2027 in exchange for Simmons and a fifth-round pick in 2028, both teams confirmed. Simmons is the first defensive tackle in the common draft era, which dates to 1967, to be traded for multiple first-round picks.

The Deal

The teams agreed terms on Thursday morning, pending a physical. The structure is stark: Chicago will not own its own first-round pick in either of the next two drafts, and Tennessee — 1–6 and rebuilding under first-year head coach Robert Saleh — now holds two first-rounders in April’s draft, its own near the top of the order and Chicago’s, plus the extra fourth. The trade came less than 24 hours after Simmons stood in the Titans’ locker room on Wednesday and said, “As far as I know, I am going to be here.” Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi said Simmons did not want to leave, and owner Amy Adams Strunk thanked him for his service to the club and the Nashville community. The comparison Chicago fans reached for at once was 2018, when the Bears shipped two first-round picks to the Raiders for Khalil Mack ahead of the season.

The Player

Simmons, 29, has played his entire career in Tennessee since the Titans took him 19th overall in the 2019 draft out of Mississippi State. He is a four-time Pro Bowler and five-time team captain who was named a First Team All-Pro last season, when he recorded a career-best 11 sacks, and he has 46.5 sacks across eight seasons. In Chicago he is reunited with Montez Sweat, his Mississippi State teammate and fellow 2019 first-rounder. Only in June, the Titans had signed him to a three-year extension worth a reported $105.8 million, with $100 million guaranteed, running through 2030 — at the time the richest contract ever given to a defensive tackle, surpassing Kansas City’s Chris Jones, and Borgonzi called him then “a pillar for our franchise.” Four months later, the pillar is a Bear, and the Titans take the draft capital and the rebuild.

Why Chicago Paid It

The Bears are 5–2 under head coach Ben Johnson and battling for a play-off place in a loaded NFC, and interior pass rush was the obvious hole in an otherwise rising team. Simmons is the rarest of deadline commodities: a 29-year-old, in-his-prime, scheme-wrecking defensive tackle, under contract for years, at a position where elite players almost never move — which is precisely why the price set a positional record. Contenders around the NFC have been loading up ahead of the November 10 trade deadline; Seattle, Chicago’s Monday night hosts, recently landed All-Pro guard Quenton Nelson from Indianapolis. Simmons’ expected Bears debut comes in that game, on Monday, November 2, at the Seahawks, capping Week 8 — his first assignment in navy and orange against the other contender’s new prize.

What Tennessee Does Now

For the Titans, the trade is an admission and an accelerant. At 1–6, with a rookie-era roster and a first-year coach, Tennessee has converted its best player into the kind of draft haul that rebuilds are made of: two first-round picks in each of the next two drafts counting its own, and an extra fourth in 2027. The Titans return to action on Sunday at the Cincinnati Bengals, without the man who anchored their defence for eight seasons. Whether the picks become a contender is a question for Aprils to come; what Thursday settled is the direction. Tennessee chose the future. Chicago, at a price no one has ever paid for a defensive tackle, chose now.

Sources: Tennessee Titans and Chicago Bears announcements; USA Today; NBC Sports; The New York Post; ESPN reporting via Athlon Sports — October 29–30, 2026; Reuters, June 2026 (extension).