The Chicago Bears' roster is comprised of plenty of young players. Find out which Bears offensive playmaker is set to make a jump in the 2026 NFL season.
The Chicago Bears' 2025 season created plenty of optimism for the future of the organization.
An NFL North title, playoff victory and ascending head coach and quarterback will do that to a team.
Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams deserve plenty of credit for Chicago's success last season, but there will many others who played a significant role. One of those players is Luther Burden III.
Bleacher Report (BR) named the Bears' wide receiver as one of the top-50 draft picks from the 2025 draft class who should make a huge leap in Year 2. The article highlighted that after the Bears traded DJ Moore to the Bills this offseason, general manager Ryan Poles didn't draft his replacement.
That's for good reason.
"Last season, Moore played the most snaps from the slot among Chicago's receiver," Brent Sobleski of BR wrote. "Burden is arguably at his best working from an inside alignment, but he's also capable of staying out wide when Johnson's offense inevitably leans on 12 personnel packages."
Burden finished with 47 receptions for 652 yards and two touchdowns during his rookie season and reached those mark despite finishing fifth in targets on the team.
Diving deeper into Burden's stats illustrates how impactful the Bears' playmaker was throughout his rookie season.
Bears assistant head coach/wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El told reporters last Thursday at Halas Hall what he sees from Burden.
"I would say for Luther the biggest thing was alignment and assignment, which he picked up great toward the end of the year," Randle El said. "I think we go back to this time last year when Luther was down with the hammy or coming off the ribs, whatever it is, he didn’t really have the opportunity to get everything down and this has been great so far, him being healthy. He looks like what we saw coming out of college and obviously now, there’s no hesitation. He knows the offense, he’s getting off, he’s running. And the other thing is just getting off the ball and running, like full speed no hesitation and that's showing up because he knows the offense. He has more confidence than he’s has before. He’s catching it, he’s finishing down the field and those things translate over to the game. It’s good to see him doing that and continuing to move forward with that."
That forward momentum hasn't just been expressed from Randle El and Bleacher Report but also some of Burden's teammates. Burden showed the Bears and the NFL glimpses of his potential last season. He will have an opportunity to create even more noise as he enters his second year in the league.
