Bears sign rookies Johnson, Simmons to contracts

Nothing official yet (EDIT: It’s official, it’s all official), but it appears that the Bears have signed their first draft picks according to, well, those draft picks.

Second round pick Jaylon Johnson, the cornerback out of Utah, posted to his Twitter page that he was signing his deal.

Seventh round offensive lineman and awesomely-named Lachavious Simmons, out of Tennessee State also tweeted he was signing his deal.

If it seems odd that all of this is happening today, well it’s not. Today’s the first day that rookies can report to Halas Hall for training camp (and COVID testing). It’s likely that agents and teams were reluctant to put ink to paper because then teams would be on the hook for money (possibly) and/or players would have nothing in writing about their health and safety and pay.

While it appears there’s still a long way to go between the NFL and the NFLPA about safety protocols and all that, the Bears are at least getting their deals done so their players can report.

Stay tuned because this is likely to just be the first as the rest of the class could be signed as soon as tonight.