Bears

Bills S C.J. Gardner-Johnson says he knew the Bears wouldn’t re-sign him, despite his performance in 11 games with them last season, in which he had three sacks and two interceptions.

“I’m a firecracker, but let’s take the body of work: never legally been in trouble; never physically harmed a person,” Gardner-Johnson said via The Athletic. “But I haven’t been a captain ever in my life. They say, ‘You gotta lead the right way.’ My definition of leading is winning… There’s a lot of captains in this league — and I want this to come out — that’s just for jersey sales. I can show you three, four captains right now that I wouldn’t get behind. Why would I get behind anybody that doesn’t believe in himself? I’ve played for plenty of false captains, but I gotta fake it, like, ‘That’s my leader!’”

Lions 

Cade Mays enters his first season as the Lions’ center following his time with the Panthers. Detroit OL coach Hank Fraley said Mays qualities on tape were big reasons why they brought him in. 

“What you got to see off his film is he’s playing physical, he’s stout at the point, he kept the depth of the pocket, stuff like that. Carolina had a very good year and he was one of the reasons why. We liked his tape and I’m glad we got him. He’s been great for the room,” Fraley said, via Colton Pouncey of The Athletic

As for second-year G Tate Ratledge, Fraley wants him to fine-tune his approach to “certain moves” against the pass rush. 

“How do you counter certain moves in the pass rush game? What were D-tackles doing to you setting you up? And then limit some of the pre-snap penalties, stuff like that. … I love where Tate’s at. I think he finished pretty strong last year. There’s little things that he just needs to detail that as you go in this league and play, you get better and better and you start seeing the bigger picture.”

Packers

The Packers go into 2026 with Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams as their safety combination. McKinney said its important for them to play off each other and has a lot of trust in the fellow safety. 

“Playing off each other is extremely important for the both of us,” McKinney said, via Mike Spofford of the team’s official site. “I trust him. I don’t have to be worried about this down or that down, what’s going to happen. I can just be like, ‘You go do you, I’m gonna do me,’ and we’re gonna make it work.”

Williams said it’s taken time on and off the field to build chemistry with McKinney. 

“You’re not going to get that trust first day,” Williams said. “It’s definitely something where you gotta make those mistakes, you gotta talk about it, you gotta watch film together. Coming in my first year I was more worried about just getting on the field in the first place, and then the more you get to play alongside (number) 29, I feel like we’ve both gotten a feel for each other’s tendencies, what each other likes to do in certain sets and certain looks. It’s a thing where you don’t have to say too much pre-snap. You kind of have a feeling what he’s going to do.”