Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson signed a four-year contract extension.
Patrick Finley | Sun-Times
Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson made himself a fortune last season.
He always assumed he would.
“To me, I’ve had it,” he said Monday. “I’ve just been waiting to collect it.”
Johnson agreed to a four-year, $76 million contract extension Thursday, two days after the Bears gave him the franchise tag. Monday, he explained the road that got him there, revealing for the first time that he sought help from a therapist for sex addiction last year.
“It’s bigger than me,” he said. “I know I’m not the only one going it, for one. Two, it’s OK to go through stuff … It’s OK to be vulnerable.”
Not that it was easy.
“Going out and seeing my therapist on an off day, it’s like, ‘Damn — that’s where I’m most uncomfortable,'” he said.
He said therapy helped him off the field. And maybe on it.
“If anything it boosted me up into being who I needed to be,” he said. “Like I said, in that place of vulnerability, I had a breakthrough. I had a breakthrough with myself and I had a breakthrough on the football field. I wouldn’t say it affected me. If anything it boosted me to be who I know I am.”
Johnson and the Bears had been working on a deal for more than a year, with mixed results. Johnson and his agent asked for a trade on the eve of the trade deadline last year. General manager Ryan Poles said he’d consider a trade only if he got a first- or second-round pick in return. The offer never came, and the Bears kept him.
The Bears gave him the franchise tag Tuesday, allowing them to continue to negotiate while ensuing he’d be under contract for 2024. Johnson said that he knew even before the franchise tag deadline that he was close to an extension.
The contract will allow Johnson to return to free agency at 28, while still in his prime. That was appealing.
“Definitely wanted as many bites at the apple as I could get,” he said.