Gervon Dexter is 24, started all 17 games last season, and has racked up 13.5 sacks and 42 QB hits since Chicago took him in the second round back in 2023. By most measures he's exactly the kind of building block a rebuilding defensive line needs to keep. So it's a little jarring to hear his name floated in trade talks less than a year before free agency.
Sources: The #Bears have had trade discussions involving DT Gervon Dexter, and there are multiple scenarios where a deal could get done sending him to a new team. Dexter, still just 24 years old, started all 17 games last season and has 13.5 career sacks and 42 QB hits. He’s in the final year of his rookie contract.
That's the report from Jordan Schultz, who says the Bears have already had trade discussions involving Dexter and that there are "multiple scenarios" where a deal could actually get done. Dexter is playing on the final year of the four-year, $6.7 million rookie deal he signed back in 2023, with a 2026 base salary in the $1.6 million range — the kind of team-friendly number that usually makes a player MORE attractive to keep, not less.
The Bears have had trade discussions involving DT Gervon Dexter, per @Schultz_Report
That's what makes this one worth watching. Chicago's defensive line has been one of the roster's shakier position groups, and Dexter, by the numbers, is the best pass-rush piece they've got up front. Shopping him now — with a walk year looming and no long-term extension in place — reads less like a salary dump and more like a front office deciding it can't, or won't, pay to keep him past 2026.
None of that means a trade is imminent. "Multiple scenarios" is vague by design — teams gauge the market on rotational starters all the time without pulling the trigger. But the fact that Schultz's report is even out there, on a guy who just played every snap of a 17-game season, tells you Chicago is at least genuinely weighing whether Dexter fits its long-term plan up front.
Worth watching from here: whether Chicago pivots to an extension instead of a trade, what package a defensive-line-needy team would actually offer for a 24-year-old with his production, and whether this leaks into training camp as a distraction before it's resolved either way.