This main sub at safety may play an important role depending on the healthy of their starters.
Let’s move back to the defensive side of the ball as we continue with our training camp battles series. The safety position is an interesting one to examine.
On the one hand, if the Chicago Bears remain healthy at the safety position, Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker will be out on the field for 100% of the defensive snaps, and the 3rd safety on the team will largely be a special-teams player.
Kevin Byard has largely remained healthy for his entire career, but he does turn 32 this August, and at that age, the odds of an injury that causes him to miss multiple games certainly could increase.
But the bigger question is Jaquan Brisker. Brisker missed two games in 2022 and two more in 2023 due to concussions, but last season, Brisker suffered a concussion in the fifth game of the year and missed the rest of the season.
With three concussions in three years, and one that caused him to miss over 12 games, you have to wonder how much the Bears can rely on Brisker to stay on the field.
If Brisker or Byard miss any time, who is going to be the man to step on the field in their place? Jonathan Owens was brought in presumably to be that man, but when Brisker went down, it was Elijah Hicks that earned the lionshare of the snaps.
Eventually, Hicks was also injured and Owens played in his place, According to then head coach Matt Eberflus, Hicks had more experience in the system and they wanted to go with that.
When Hicks suffered his ankle injury and missed time, Owens played fairly well in his place, Hicks eventually came back but split time with Owens and eventually Hicks shut it down for the last two games of the season while Owens remained on the field as the team’s safety.
When it comes to the 2025 season, who wins this battle between Owens and Hicks will come down is how they do in pass coverage. Let’s look at Hicks’ passer ratings against over his three seasons. In 2022, it was 158.3, which is a perfect passer rating. In 2023, the rating was 124.8, and in 2024 it was 109.5. All three of those numbers are terrible, but on a positive note, it has improved every season of his career. Owens, over the last three years, has had passer ratings of 128.5, 118.2, and 130.2.
None of those statistics should leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Both of them are strong run defenders, but neither is very good against the pass. If Hicks got the nod last season due to his familiarity with Eberflus’ system, that won’t give him a leg up as both of them will be fresh in Dennis Allen’s system.
It’s going to be interesting to see how safety plays out in training camp. Not just for the third safety, but what’s also worth noting, all four of the Bears’ safeties that are expected to make the 53-man roster are in the final year of their contracts.
The safety position is very uncertain beyond 2025, so every player is auditioning for 2026.
But back to the third safety battle, I don’t have a lean as to how this plays out. Being Hicks is younger and has shown some steady improvement over his three seasons, I would expect Hicks to get the nod if Brisker has issues staying on the field again.
There’s been plenty of focus on how Ben Johnson reimagines the Bears’ offense, but there’s also plenty of intrigue as to how Dennis Allen utilizes this roster on defense and how players fit into a puzzle that we, as fans and media, don’t quite know how all the pieces are going to fit.
With that in mind, how things play out between Owens and Hicks is anybody’s guess.