Deep into yet another NFL training camp, Marcedes Lewis is confronted with a direct question: Why?
Why, three months past his 40th birthday, is Lewis still committed to this grind, invested in playing his 19th season and serving as a veteran leader for a Chicago Bears team trying to establish itself as a playoff contender?
“I still love the game, man,” Lewis says with an energized grin. “I really do. I feel like my mind will check out before my body does. And I’m just not at that point yet.”
And why does Lewis remain so bullish on the direction these Bears are pointed as they head toward the regular season?
“I saw a lot from this group the second half of last season,” he says. “Guys could have easily tanked it. But we had a lot of guys still taking detailed notes in the meetings, still rolling into work with smiles on their faces.
“Those are the types of guys you want to fight for. And this is a group that’s fighting for each other in practice and fighting for each other with everything we do. It’s a group of guys trying to do everything the right way to become victorious on Sundays. That’s the main goal.”
Where some may ask “Why?” Lewis responds with an emphatic “Why the hell not?” Mentally, he knows he’s ready for another season and believes he’s in the right place.
“I also realize I’m still competing at a very high level,” Lewis continues. “I laugh about it with my family all the time. And I try not to question it a lot because I don’t want to jinx it. But I feel really good. I’m still putting a lot of really good stuff on film. I know I still have a lot in the tank. And I feel like I can help the Bears compete for a championship.”
Lewis is on his second contract with the Bears, a one-year deal worth up to $2 million. He agreed to terms in early June, and the Bears believe he can remain not only a tone-setting tight end in their offense, but also a direction-setting veteran in the locker room.
Sure, Lewis’ first season in Chicago was a 10-loss, last-place campaign that ended with a sobering 17-9 face plant at Lambeau Field against his former team, the Green Bay Packers.
Still, the surge the Bears made from early November through New Year’s Eve, winning five times in seven games, made an impression. Lewis felt a strengthening bond that left many in the locker room optimistic.
“That gave me hope,” he says. “Even this offseason when I had a handful of teams reaching out my way, I told my agent to let everybody know that my best-case scenario is that I’d wind up back here. And the universe conspired in the right direction. So here I am.”
Here he is indeed. In Season 19, a year and a half older than the general manager who signed him and 18 years older than the team’s new starting quarterback.
Lewis will begin the season as one of two active players in their 40s, a fraternity whose other member is New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, his close friend and a teammate for five seasons in Green Bay.
With nearly two decades of experience, Lewis likes to think he has a good feel for what high-level competitive hunger looks like. And right now he senses a Bears team that not only has that quality, but also is using it daily to create momentum.
“It’s one of those things where you recognize the talent here and you know that we’ve added even more talent (from last year), but we’re competitive as (expletive),” Lewis says. “That’s how all our practices go. And the cool thing now is you’re seeing guys on the offensive side of the ball helping guys on the defensive side and vice versa.
“To me, that’s a big sign for championship-caliber teams. We’re able to coach ourselves and help each other out with the things we’re seeing on the field. The coaches can’t play for you. At the end of the day, it’s on us to take that ownership. And we’re taking huge steps in that direction.”
When Lewis arrived in Chicago in August 2023, he asserted that he always has gravitated toward young and hungry players who make it clear they don’t know it all. So perhaps it’s serendipity that his newest QB1, rookie Caleb Williams, seems to fit that profile perfectly.
“He’s the leader of that school, man,” Lewis said. “Obviously we all see his talent on the field. But off the field, he’s a dude you can have meaningful conversation with and he’s somebody who you want to go have dinner with.
“He’s definitely my type of guy, a guy who gets it, a guy who understands his strengths and weakness. And he’s willing to show vulnerability.”
As the oldest dog on the team, Lewis has been impressed with the young pup pushing to revive the Bears.
“When you’re picked No. 1 overall in the draft, there’s an aura that comes with you,” Lewis says. “But with Caleb? When you’re talking to him, that just disappears. And it’s been cool to see how he is able to cross the lines with the youngest guys on the team and the guys who have been in the league for five or six years or more. Everybody can associate with his language.”
Just a reminder: Lewis’ NFL career began in 2006 with the Jacksonville Jaguars — before Williams had entered kindergarten. Still, Lewis stresses how he remains driven by the opportunity to continue growing while also pushing others, including Williams.
“I still want to learn,” Lewis says. “And I think that’s what keeps me hungry. Then when you find young guys who feel the same way, you want to pour into them.”
In the Halas Hall tight ends room, Lewis will continue to pour into Cole Kmet, 25, and Gerald Everett, 30. He knows a big reason GM Ryan Poles and coach Matt Eberflus wanted him back this season is to impart wisdom and set an example of how to be a professional.
But Lewis says he rarely if ever makes that his purpose for a given day, instead preferring his mentoring to happen organically.
“I’ve never sought it out. I am a lead-by-example guy,” he says. “But I have also realized over time that most of the guys who want to ask questions are the ones who want to be really good at what they’re doing. They’re the ones who actually give a (expletive) about football. And when they come and ask me about this or that, then I’ll lean into it.
“But I don’t want to intimidate people by going up to them, pushing that I have all this football knowledge and being that way. For me, it’s just like, hey, everybody has their own timing and their own positioning and when you’re ready for it, I’m here.”
A few years back in Green Bay, Lewis openly lamented that his prime was in the rearview mirror, that he was no longer the playmaking tight end who regularly caught touchdown passes. (He had a career-high 10 TDs back in 2010.) But close friend Davante Adams offered him a different lens.
Says Lewis: “He was like, ‘Bro, you are in your prime. You’re just in your second prime. And it’s just different.’”
That served as a reminder for Lewis to embrace the ways he still can affect a football game. So now he enjoys every opportunity to free a running back with a perfect block, just as much as he used to enjoy consistently making big catches.
“I’ve got gratitude for it all,” Lewis says.
For a player who entered the NFL as a first-round pick out of UCLA in 2006 and had what then felt like grand aspirations of surviving in the league for up to a decade, the arrival of Season 19 feels a bit surreal. But it also feels right.
“This is part of my purpose,” Lewis says. “I was born to do this. I’m not going to disrespect that gift.”
So here he is, clocking in again and charging into another NFL season, excited to help propel the Bears onward. The question of why has been very clearly answered.
“One day this window will close,” Lewis says. “But it’s not right now. So …”
