A reporter asked Bears WR Rome Odunze on Thursday to clarify what he meant in his June quote talking about his "new normal" in the wake of last year's foot fracture. Here's what he had to say, according to ESPN's Courtney Cronin ...
What They're Saying: The Foot's Good
Odunze: "I really didn’t articulate it well, honestly. That’s not really what I meant. I just kind of meant that I had an injury. That’s it. That’s football. My foot feels great. My foot feels amazing. The training staff here, the training staffs I work with in the offseason, all the work that I’ve put in to get it right, honestly it’s not even really something that I think about anymore, which I think is the best thing I think you can have after an injury. I know ‘new normal,’ that has a bunch of connotations of chronic and severe, like it’s never going to be the same. It’s not like that at all. I’m completely fine. I went through my process of recovery and rehab and it’s been great. Obviously I do my due diligence and all those things. Being out sucks. That really is the No. 1 thing as a football player, any athlete, you all know, you don’t want to be out -- practice, game, whatever it is. Went through my process of getting that right and I feel amazing."
2026 Fantasy Football Impact: Odunze Makes Sense in Your Draft
That's good to hear, though we hadn't been treating Odunze as if he were limited in our 2026 projections.
Through Week 13 last year, Odunze led the Bears in:
- routes
- targets
- receptions
- yards
- air yards
- TD catches
- and first-read percentage (share of team's first-read and designed targets, according to Fantasy Points Data)
He played a portion of that on the injured foot before sitting out the final five regular-season games. Odunze returned for the playoffs by managed just 4 catches on 12 tragets across those contests.
He now sits 30th among WRs in best ball ADP and 28th at the position in consensus 12-team redraft ADP. That matches where Odunze sits in our PPR rankings.
He's a solid-to-good pick in that range, with upside tied to QB Caleb Williams improving his accuracy and/or Odunze earning more targets in the short-to-intermediate range.
