Bears voted as having three breakout candidates on offense for 2026 season

The Chicago Bears didn't make any major changes on the offensive side of the ball over the offseason, and that's a good thing. With Ben Johnson running the offense, the players all coming back for a second season could lead to a breakout year.

There is plenty of hype about this Bears offense heading into the 2026 season, and that could be seen with the breakout candidate voting from CBS Sports.

As Zachary Pereles of CBS Sports shared, three players on the Bears were voted as breakout candidates for the 2026 season: Caleb Williams, Colston Loveland, and Luther Burden III.

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"With four votes, Caleb Williams won a highly competitive vote that featured seven different quarterbacks," Pereles writes.

Williams earned four breakout votes, with Tyler Shough of the New Orleans Saints coming in second with three votes from the panel of CBS Sports voters.

While there can be some optimism for the Saints and Shough in 2026, it's hard not to see Williams, in year two with Johnson as his playcaller and head coach, making another big leap this upcoming season. Williams could be in the MVP race this year.

"Voters listened when Ben Johnson spoke at the outside of training camp," Pereles writes. Burden was joined by Josh Downs and De'Zhaun Stribling as the three breakout WRs according to this CBS Sports poll.

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Considering Johnson said earlier this offseason, "I'my buying Luther Burden stock right now," it was likely an easy choice to call Burden a breakout candidate considering how good he looked to close the 2025 season for Chicago.

Laslty, Loveland and fellow NFC North TE Tucker Kraft both placed first in this breakout candidate voting, as Pereles notes they, "received three votes apiece to lead the way at tight end."

While Burden closed out his rookie season strong, Loveland really came on at the end of the year, and looked like arguably the best TE in the league, hauling in 597 yards and six touchdowns on 47 receptions in the last 10 games of the year.

Williams, Burden and Loveland are three easy breakout candidates for the upcoming 2026 season. In this poll conducted by CBS Sports, all three were named to the All-Breakout Team ahead of what could be a massive season for the Bears.

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