Chicago Bears CB Jaylon Johnson has a new contract, but his hunger to be great remains the same

Jaylon Johnson has everything a 24-year-old cornerback could possibly want in the NFL.

He just signed a new four-year contract extension worth $76 million with 54.4 million in guaranteed money. He is coming off his best season of his career — a year that entailed four interceptions (including a pick-6), 10 passes defended and a forced fumble. He is also looked at as one of the organization’s building blocks and is one of the team’s most respected leaders in the locker room.

Johnson has it pretty good right now.

But despite his individual success up to this point in his career, it doesn’t mean he is anywhere close to being satisfied. Johnson has plenty more that he wants to accomplish.

And it simply starts with showing that his most recent production on the football field wasn’t just a one-time occurrence.

“Shoot, I got to do it again,” Johnson said. “Some people think it’s luck. I got to do it three years in a row. I got to do it two years in a row. I know what comes with that, and I mean, too, I feel like for me, I want to be able to have that yellow jacket. I want to be the best 33 to wear the jersey. I think just for me I have those type of goals and aspirations. I know that with things like that, to get a yellow jacket, you have to be consistently great.

I think, for me, that’s my goal is to consistently be great. To have years like I’ve had for back to back to back seasons. For me, I think just consistent greatness is my goal from a broad perspective. Just as individual, I feel like that’s something I’m going to have to reset heading into the season.”

Going into the 2024 season, there will be less distractions on Johnson’s mind. To start, he won’t have underlying thoughts about a potential new contract, even though Johnson acknowledged on Monday that it wasn’t hard at all to focus on football while his contract situation was being discussed with his team and the Bears.

Also, Johnson went to therapy last season for sexual addiction — which he admitted was hard for him to open up about. Still, Johnson brought it upon himself to share his internal struggles in an open platform.

“I think for me, though, it’s bigger than me,” Johnson said. “I want to say for one it’s because I know I’m not the only one going through it for one. Two, it’s okay to go through stuff. It’s okay to not be perfect and I feel like people put us literally on this pedestal to get up here and talk and oh well, guys are this, guys are that. Like man, we are human too. We go through things. Everybody goes through things, but I feel like people feel like you got to put a mask on, you got to cover it up.

Like naw, it’s okay to go through things, it’s okay to seek help, it’s okay to be vulnerable. … For me to get up here and share, I want people to get up and really share and get on their knees, be at God’s feet to let them really shine in their life and help them in many ways that he has helped me.” 

Johnson is in a better place now than he was a year ago. This will only help the Bears to continue to raise the standard and overall expectations the team has moving forward. Since Johnson was drafted in the second round out Utah in 2020, the team has only won 24 games in four seasons.

“I feel like we’ve been losing way too much,” Johnson said. “I feel like as competitors we want to win. I know what we talk about in the locker room, what we talk about in our DB room, I think like I said the thirst for wins is there. The thirst for wins is there. We have to continue to execute. I don’t think it’s a lack of effort or lack of physicality or anything like that. I think it’s more so execution. Going out there and I think emphasizing execution with guys — this offseason, through camps and through the season — is going to be the biggest thing for us.

I feel like we have to continue to find ways to win. I feel like that’s been my damn speech for four years. Hopefully we can get it done. That’s what we’re working to. I know guys have been calling each other trying to figure out where we’re going to train in the offseason together. I know the bond, the chemistry, the want-to is definitely there. I hope that we can turn that into wins on Sunday.”

Johnson is all for raising the number in the win column as he plays on his new contract, but one thing he isn’t changing is his overall mindset on how he approaches the game.

The veteran defensive back is now being paid as one of the top cornerbacks in the league, which comes with obvious expectations that he will have to meet each time he steps out onto the field. But Johnson doesn’t really think about that and will continue to play the game the only way he knows how.

“Nah, they was gonna see me regardless,” Johnson said. “The contract don’t change … I mean, the contract does change to some people, but I’m not one of those. I’m not moved by money, or oh yeah, well, now I just … I’m this certain guy. I’ve been that guy before the contract. Before the one of the highest paid. But for me, I still got a lot to prove to myself. And I mean just goals just continue to be set and you set new ones. The money doesn’t stop the hunger that I got.”