What Chicago Bears are getting in DE Dayo Odeyingbo: ‘This dude wants to be remembered'

New York Times

7 days ago

When Dayo Odeyingbo talked with the Chicago Bears, he wanted to know their vision. Sure, contract terms were discussed, but that's for agents.
The 25-year-old defensive end entering free agency for the first time in his career could have gone a lot of places. He did his research. He had a question for general manager Ryan Poles and the team's leadership.
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'Top to bottom, everybody has expressed that same thing. The goal is to bring a Lombardi (Trophy) to this city,' Odeyingbo said the day he signed his contract in March. 'That was big for me. I want to have a meaningful career. I want to leave a legacy in the NFL. I don't want to just collect checks, you know. I want to be a part of a winning culture and a winning organization.'
Players might offer similar sentiments all the time, but Odeyingbo prioritized it. According to those who coached him, that's who he is.
'What he learned to do is not be driven by the money but by the process of being remembered,' said Derek Mason, Odeyingbo's head coach at Vanderbilt. 'This dude wants to be remembered. He wants to win. I think right now, he's chasing winning.'
Dayo Da Bear
Let's get it, @dodeyingbo! 🐻⬇️ pic.twitter.com/tiKWLrlv3c
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) March 13, 2025
Speaking to The Athletic after practice last week, Odeyingbo reiterated that mindset. He talked about James Harrison, the legendary Steelers pass rusher. Harrison was in the league for seven seasons before his first big contract. He might not have always had the most lucrative deals, but he was a fearsome playmaker.
'(Harrison) had a meaningful career, and everyone knows who he is because of the things he did in big moments,' Odeyingbo said. 'That's what I want to be a part of. That's why I asked those questions.'
One January a decade ago, Terry Smith walked out of his coach's office at Ranchview High School in Texas when he saw a 6-foot-3, 180-pound kid standing in the hallway.
'Who are you and why aren't you playing football?' Smith asked.
'I'm Dayo,' the student responded. 'And you've got to ask my mom.'
Odeyingbo's older brother, Dare, was a star football player. Dayo switched high schools, intending to play football — his previous school didn't have a program — but his mom, Betty, wanted him to spend a year or two focused on academics.
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Smith called, and 'the rest is history,' he said. Odeyingbo started lifting weights and then began his football career at wide receiver and outside linebacker. Then they asked him to play tight end. He was one of the best blockers, and when an offensive tackle went down, Smith asked if Odeyingbo would move to left tackle.
'I thought that was going to be a difficult conversation,' Smith said. 'And he said, 'Whatever you need, Coach.' He came in and just excelled at it. He did everything we asked him to do.'
Odeyingbo's only issue with the switch was having to go from No. 8 to No. 76. He wasn't thrilled about that. Playing tackle? 'That was a lot of fun,' he said.
'He was fast and you couldn't beat him,' Smith said. 'Strong, long arms, and Dayo is smart. He got a 1400 on his SAT. Anything he was taught, it didn't take a lot of reps for him to learn it. When he got on you, you weren't getting away from him, you weren't going around him, and you weren't going through him. He was a dang good left tackle.'
Odeyingbo's first offer — from Tulsa — came on his 16th birthday. The next year, he got offers from everywhere. Oklahoma wanted him to play tackle. Texas made a late push. But Odeyingbo wanted to be with his brother, and his mom preferred the academics at Vanderbilt. He would join his brother in Nashville, Tenn., and on the defensive line.
Odeyingbo started both ways as a high school senior and had 47 tackles, 20 tackles for loss, seven sacks and three forced fumbles to close his prep career.
Reflecting on his time coaching Odeyingbo, Smith said one play stood out. It was such a notable play that at the all-district meetings, another coach brought it up.
'We had 10 men on the field. The defensive tackle on his side wasn't there — didn't get the message, wasn't on the field,' Smith said. 'They ran at him, and he destroyed two blockers and made a play three yards in the backfield. We never knew anybody was there because he made up for it.
'He was gonna make plays, and you better know where he's at.'
When Mason was recruiting Dare, he noticed 'this long-limbed noodle of a young player, but he had that look in his eye. He just did.'
He told a young Dayo, 'You're going to have the opportunity to be better than your brother.'
The brothers are two years and 10 months apart. Dayo felt he was living in his brother's shadow — he had someone to look up to, literally.
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'He was a really good football player, was bigger than everyone else, always doing the right thing,' Odeyingbo said. 'There was a high expectation coming up behind him, whether it was peewee, high school or college. It was always motivation. It was like a benchmark. I was always chasing him. It was good to have that leadership and to have him as a role model.'
#NationalSibingsDay, Odeyingbo bros edition. #AnchorDown pic.twitter.com/ItK0quTGXT
— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) April 10, 2019
With his brother already an established player at Vanderbilt, Odeyingbo was familiar with the school. As was his friend and teammate Jalen Pinkney, whose older brother Jared played with Dare.
'The Pinkneys and Odeyingbo brothers were pretty close, but these two young ones were knuckleheads,' Mason said with a laugh.
What that meant, Dayo said, is that maybe he and Jalen would do seven hours of study hall instead of eight. They weren't on top of the details as freshmen. School came easily to Dayo, too, but this was Vanderbilt. This was college football.
One day ahead of an early morning study hall, Dayo and Jalen decided to bring pillows and blankets and rest in the back of the room. They woke up to an angry staff member, and the next morning, there were consequences.
It had snowed up to their shins, yet Odeyingbo and Pinkney were out in the snow at 5 a.m. with coach Osia Lewis, who was battling cancer at the time. The punishment was conditioning drills.
'They were out there for about an hour. His goal was to make them quit,' Mason said. 'They're gonna get it or quit. To their great fortune, to our great fortune, they didn't. They were different after that day. Dayo, from that moment on, became a different dude. He understood his purpose and why he was there.'
Lewis died in May 2020, but he had a powerful impact on Odeyingbo, especially that day. It's a memory that Odeyingbo said he was talking about recently when with the Pinkneys.
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'I was so mad. I could not understand at the time why we were out here for sleeping in study hall, what I thought was trivial,' he said. 'Looking back, it was very meaningful. He's battling cancer, and for him to do all that out in the cold — I know he didn't want to be there, but he wanted us to learn, be better men, be better students, be better athletes.'
The veteran coach saw something in Odeyingbo and knew if he bought into the details, he could thrive.
'Coach Lewis was a guy that continually pushed him to be a better version of himself because he saw how gifted he was basically from Day 1, and how far he could go if he committed to himself and the process and being the best version of himself,' Dare said. 'We're very grateful to him. When he plays, Dayo carries that memory with him. He's doing his best to make him as proud as possible.'
In the 2018 season opener, Dayo's sophomore year and Dare's senior year, the younger Odeyingbo had a cast on from a hand injury. During the game, Odeyingbo fell on that arm and sprained his AC joint. He got an X-ray, then went back on the field for third down, replacing his older brother.
That play, the running back coughed up the football — 'turf monster got him,' Dayo said — and the ball went up into the air and into Odeyingbo's hands. He walked into the end zone for a touchdown.
'I was so excited for him,' Dare said, 'but the first thing I said when he got to the sideline was, 'You know that was my touchdown, right?' '
As Dare left to pursue his NFL dream, Dayo racked up 12 tackles for loss in 2019. During that season, the Commodores were 1-5 and hosting No. 22-ranked Missouri. Odeyingbo had three QB hits and a half-sack in the upset win, Vanderbilt's only SEC victory that season.
'Seeing how dominant he was on the field, how explosive he was, how he could get into the backfield almost any time he wanted,' Dare said, 'I thought to myself, he could go far if he keeps this up.'
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When Vanderbilt went 0-8 during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, Odeyingbo was still second-team All-SEC. He had 5 1/2 sacks.
'Nobody gave him anything at Vanderbilt,' Mason said. 'He earned a degree, an opportunity to be drafted by a team that went 0-8. It was an unbelievable run of what he left there. If you asked people, he never missed practice. He practiced every day, and he practiced as hard as he played.'
That is a bad man.
💪 @dodeyingbo 💪#RTI | #AnchorDown pic.twitter.com/U5BK4PH90Q
— Vanderbilt Football (@VandyFootball) November 28, 2020
The look in Odeyingbo's eye that Mason saw years earlier proved to be real, leading to a second-round pick from a program that didn't win a game. An Achilles injury in January before the draft probably sent Odeyingbo down some draft boards, but NFL teams saw plenty of potential. They might have seen that look, too.
'Some guys have it,' said Mason, now the head coach at Middle Tennessee State. 'Dayo was one, you could see, whatever he'd put his mind to, he was gonna do. Talking to me about being better than his brother, I knew that he would grow into that, and he did.'
The Bears had a glaring need at defensive end this offseason. They have to get more pass-rush production. Montez Sweat could use a better complement opposite him.
Odyeingbo had only three sacks for the Colts last season after eight in 2023, but he did tie a career-high with 17 quarterback hits. According to Pro Football Focus, he had 42 pressures, 13 more than the previous season.
When Odeyingbo was introduced at Halas Hall, a reporter asked Poles about the dip in sack production. Odeyingbo didn't move in his seat, but he looked like someone taking note of the question, of the skepticism.
'It's motivation at the end of the day,' he said two months later. 'I pride myself on getting better every year. Even though I went down in sacks, I did improve as a player and in a lot of ways last year. It's just motivation.'
Eins… Zwei… Drei@dodeyingbo giving everyone a counting lesson.
📺 NFLN
pic.twitter.com/GUGhZrb4vu
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) November 12, 2023
Dare wasn't surprised that any semblance of doubt that followed a three-year, $48 million contract might have rankled his younger brother.
'Part of the reason he was such a knucklehead growing up was he had a desire to always be … whenever we got into arguments, he always had to be right,' said Dare, now a football coach and staff member at Portsmouth Abbey School. 'Even having that little bit of doubt will drive him further. Everyone is aware of their sack totals and stats.
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'He knows the production he can have, so I know that is probably already in the back of his head, and it can now drive him a little bit further.'
The Bears didn't draft an edge rusher. Rookie Shemar Turner could certainly get some reps on the end, but he'll start his career inside. There's confidence in Odeyingbo.
'From the work that we did on him, and this was before I got to Chicago, I knew what the makeup was,' Poles said in March. 'The intelligence, toughness, the style of play were absolutely what we want. And you can see him getting better every single year. Sometimes that shows up statistically, sometimes that doesn't, but you can see him affect the game.'
Odeyingbo has a few friends who played on the Philadelphia Eagles last season. He saw them hoist the Lombardi Trophy. He took note of that, too. He's in Chicago to try and end a 40-year drought.
'I want to win,' he said. 'You only have so long to get a trophy and get a ring. … The money will come. But the biggest thing is to leave a legacy.'