Kevin Byard’s first season with the Chicago Bears has been a challenge. The veteran safety won’t dispute that. A midseason coach firing and a 10-game losing streak marred a year that started with much hope.
But Byard has a unique perspective on playing through the Bears’ 2024 trials as he prepares to start his 17th game of the season Sunday against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
It will be his 147th consecutive regular-season game played. Now in his ninth NFL season, Byard, 31, hasn’t missed a game, aside from an October 2023 trade from the Tennessee Titans to the Philadelphia Eagles that resulted in his having two bye weeks.
The streak is a testament to his physical durability, his work to maintain his health — and a mental fortitude that has helped him persist despite considerable adversity.
Before Byard had to figure out how to navigate the most losses of his career with the 4-12 Bears, he played the previous two seasons while dealing with matters of death and extraordinary life.
“It’s understanding that sometimes you’re not always going to get the results that you want,” Byard said Thursday at Halas Hall, “but you don’t let a circumstance dictate how you approach each day. I’ve always tried to be an even-keeled guy, showing up every day for my guys — not only for my team but my family as well. So it’s been a challenge.
“I’ve learned a lot from this, but you always just have to continue to persevere. Because the way I see it, the type of things I’ve been through in my personal life the past couple of years, those things are a lot harder than what I’m going through right now as far as on-the-field stuff.”
Byard has had a more difficult time than most people know. His mother, whose work ethic was a driving force in his unflappable commitment to football, died in 2022, and he played for the Titans that season with grief weighing on him.
And then there was the trade from the Titans, the only NFL team he had known and something that might upset any family. Only Byard’s move to the Eagles didn’t come under normal circumstances.
Two weeks before the trade, Byard’s son Amari was born at 26 weeks. He weighed about 2½ pounds, so small he could fit in one of Byard’s hands. Amari spent nearly the first five months of his life in a neonatal intensive care unit in Tennessee.
Byard, however, had to be in Philadelphia.
“These past two years have been incredibly rough for me on the personal side,” Byard said earlier this season. “It’s definitely affected me a little bit on the playing side. But coming here to Chicago has been very refreshing because a lot of stuff is kind of behind us now.”
‘Keep your head down’
Byard’s work ethic and drive come from his mother, Artina Stanley, who raised seven children mostly on her own.
After Stanley’s divorce from Byard’s father when Byard was a teenager, she moved the family from Philadelphia to Georgia, where she worked as a waitress at a Piccadilly cafeteria at a mall — even into Byard’s NFL career.
Stanley was the life of the party with an infectious personality, and no one on the outside would have known how much they struggled financially while watching her operate with a smile.
“She had incredible work ethic,” Byard said. “And just seeing the struggles that she went through, struggles that I’ve been through in my life, that’s always what drove me.”
It has been part of his drive every step of the way.
As an all-state, two-way standout at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Lithonia, Ga., Byard told himself: “Man, I’ve got to get a scholarship so I can get up out of the situation. Because this right here is not what you want it to be.”
As an All-Conference USA safety at Middle Tennessee State, he reminded himself: I have to grind it out to make it to the NFL to help out my family.
And as he quickly rose to be an NFL All-Pro in his second season in 2017, he didn’t relent: “OK, now you made it out. You can easily go back. It takes a long time to build up a resume, but it takes one mistake to go right back to where you started.”
In 2020, after Byard signed a five-year, $70.5 million contract with the Titans, he proudly posted on social media a photo of Stanley standing in front of the new house he bought her, calling it “a pipe dream that only few are able to accomplish.”
“You don’t want to go back to what you came from, so you keep your head down,” Byard said. “And over time, those types of things just built the mentality in my mind, like, your whole entire life, you’ve been doubted, but you always kept your head down. You always kept working. And so why change that now? Just keep your head down, keep working.”
That has translated into Byard’s commitment to being available on the football field, a dedication that goes beyond his games-played streak.
Byard said until this season he hadn’t even missed a practice because of injury, though he was given veteran rest days and missed time for the birth of his children and death of his mother.
He has missed little time this season, too, though he did sit out a practice in September with a back issue and was limited in December by a shoulder issue.
When he suffered groin tightness in training camp, the Bears assured him it was better to rest up for the season, that he didn’t have anything to prove. Byard admitted it felt good to get the rest — but also weird.
“He kind of felt like an odd man, like, ‘What do I do?’” said Bears safeties coach Andre Curtis, who told Byard: “You get treatment. Like everybody else does.”
“It’s a credit to him,” Curtis said of Byard’s durability. “He’s got a routine and a regimen that he sticks through over the years, so he’s got his body kind of figured out. Hopefully he’s sharing that same wisdom and knowledge to all the other players. It’s kind of an incredible thing that he’s done that for such a long time.”
Staying injury-free requires some luck. Byard thinks his offseason routine, based on the belief his body needs to stay in motion, also has helped.
As soon as the Super Bowl is over, he hops on the Peloton or sees his body-work specialist. By March he’s into running, so that when he gets to organized team activities, it’s not the first time he has gone full speed. He believes in former Bears coach Matt Eberflus’ philosophy of bodies getting “callused” so they can withstand the rigors of training camp and the season.
In season, Byard follows a weekly body maintenance routine that utilizes red light therapy, hot and cold tubs, saunas, massages and twice-a-week IV therapy.
Staying on the field has required a mental toughness, too, especially the last few years.
“The older I get, I won’t say the more I don’t want to do it, but the tougher it gets,” Byard said. “It’s like, man, these hard summer workouts, it definitely gets tough, but they pay off at the end.
“It takes a lot of mental fortitude. It takes a lot from my family. My wife is doing a lot of stuff for our family so I can have the mindset to be able to go and work and do what I need to do.”
A dark space
Everything was clicking for Byard in 2021.
He had struggled through the COVID-19-affected 2020 season. His diet was off. He had only one interception, his lowest total since his rookie season. And he vowed the next year would be better.
So he altered his eating habits. He dived into his body movement routine. And he snared five interceptions, including a pick-six, on the way to his second All-Pro honor. His life on and off the field was thriving.
But during the Titans’ 2022 minicamp, Byard suffered a shock he still finds hard to discuss. Stanley suffered cardiac arrest while in the hospital, lost oxygen to her brain and was brain dead. Byard lost the woman who was his inspiration.
He entered what he called a “really dark space in my life.” And one of the hardest parts was the turnaround from the life-altering trauma.
Stanley died. Her family held the funeral.
“And I literally had to go right back to start training for the season,” Byard said. “I was very close to just like, not retiring, but I felt like I really needed to take a year off of football because I really didn’t know where to go. I still have younger siblings. It was just a tough time for all of us.”
Byard felt stuck, like he was “floating mentally” through football. He played that season through the grief, the effects of which he still is dealing with, unaware that the next season would throw even more life challenges his way.
Heading into the 2023 season, Byard’s wife, Clarke, was pregnant with their third child. Her water broke at 19 weeks. She didn’t miscarry but was put on bed rest at the hospital.
Every day through the first five weeks of the season, Byard got his other two children ready for school, went to work for the Titans, went to the hospital to visit Clarke and returned home to relieve their nanny and get his kids ready for bed.
The Titans visited the Indianapolis Colts on Oct. 8, and when Byard returned from the road trip, Clarke had an emergency C-section.
Amari was born that night. His lungs weren’t fully developed, so he needed to spend nearly the first five months of his life in the NICU.
Two weeks after Amari’s birth, the Titans traded Byard to the Eagles. He wasn’t entirely shocked. The Titans had unsuccessfully asked him to take a pay cut in the offseason, and he understood where they were as a franchise, sitting at 2-4. He also was intrigued about returning to play in his birthplace.
But the move meant he had to play out the rest of the season without his family.
Clarke stayed in Tennessee to be with Amari. Byard said Eagles coach Nick Sirianni was understanding and offered him the chance to go home on days off, though he usually stayed to work. Clarke tried to go to a few games, but it was too difficult to be away from their son.
“I just told her, ‘Listen, obviously I want to see my kids. I know you want to come support me. I want you to come support me. But it’s too much for the family right now. I’d rather you be home,’” Byard said. “Because I truly, honestly, at times didn’t want to be up there in Philly. Obviously I had a job to do, but I had so much stuff going on personally, at times I just wanted to go home.”
Over those two years, Byard said he leaned on the support of his family — and the understanding that he and Clarke were going through hard times together. He went to therapy. And he leaned on his faith. He uses Bible verses to help him stay in a great mindset.
“Because sometimes you do get in the modes where it’s like, hey, I really want to take a day off, or I really don’t want to do this,” Byard said. “But sometimes you realize that things are bigger than you and the things you’re trying to accomplish are bigger than what you can even see.”
Those realizations have come more recently. He said he wasn’t exactly a “knucklehead” when he was younger, but he wasn’t big into his faith.
But on nights before games in Tennessee, he went to the chapel and talked with Titans team chaplain James Mitchell. The two grew close. They talked in Mitchell’s office, and Mitchell suggested books and podcasts. They had dinner together with their families and shared cigars.
Mitchell became one of the most influential people in Byard’s life, and he helped him maintain his equilibrium through the recent challenges. They still text or call, and Mitchell offered Byard a message about first the move to Philadelphia and then the move to Chicago.
“God is sending you to a new place, in a new locker room, not even for a football side of it,” Byard said. “Like, affect as many people as you can in this team, in this locker room, because God sends us everywhere. A lot of stuff that you look at in the moment, it doesn’t make sense sometimes, but when you look back at it, he has you exactly where you needed to be.”
‘Just playing ball’
Amari is nearing 15 months — and nearly one year out of the hospital. He was in the NICU until Feb. 22 and was on oxygen the first few months at home. But he is now in good health, Byard said, and the family — including older siblings Eliana and Kevin — was reunited with the move to the Chicago area.
Joining the Bears was not without challenges. Byard had been in Tennessee for more than a decade between his college and pro careers, and he and his family had to adjust to a new city. He said having his family’s support with him again was big. He could go home and play with his kids after work, getting his mind off the game.
The football started to feel like how it used to, he said, in spite of the Bears’ struggles.
“We just focus on family life and just playing ball,” Byard said.
Before many games this season, Byard would bounce in the center of the Bears’ post-warmup huddle, sharing brief motivational speeches, a task he said happened organically as one of the team’s veteran leaders.
He was named one of eight captains this season — the only first-year Bears player on the list besides quarterback Caleb Williams — a nod to the experience he brought as the elder statesman of the defense. He embraced the idea of spreading to his teammates the knowledge that has helped him.
“As you get older, you do realize it’s like, ‘Each one, teach one,’” Byard said. “I love to see other players succeed. I love to see Jaylon (Johnson) succeed and (Jaquan) Brisker and other guys on the defense. That’s fun for me.
“Also just on a personal, spiritual level, to have one-on-one talks with guys if they’re dealing with something, because I’ve been through a lot in my life. To try to assist them with stuff like that, that’s big. That really makes me feel just as good as making a play on the field. … That almost feels like catching an interception.”
In late September, the day after Brisker had one of the best games of his career against the Los Angeles Rams, totaling 12 tackles, an interception and a sack, Byard sat in an armchair at Halas Hall across from the third-year safety and told him he “balled out like crazy, bro.”
Brisker was a guest on Byard’s “Intercepted” YouTube show. The pair talked for 18 minutes about Brisker’s football journey, cracking up over their past athletic feats, Brisker’s uncomfortable junior college living conditions and the cheap, healthy snack they both relied on while growing up on tight budgets — tuna.
“I feel like from day one, it’s been great on and off the field,” said Brisker, who suffered a season-ending concussion a short time later. “Just a lot of off-the-field things, with family, with football, or it might just be like with real estate (advice).
“On the field, he’s very communicative. Makes sure we’re on the same page. Talks to us about different tips, the way he sees things.”
Byard’s resume carried an obvious weight. As defensive passing game coordinator Jon Hoke pointed out, “Just ask yourself this: How many practice reps and meetings in 10 years do you think he has seen?” That, Hoke said, helped Byard excel at his craft and fit in with the Bears defense.
How he approaches his work also earned respect.
“He takes an extreme amount of pride in knowing the game plan in and out,” Curtis said, “knowing how to adjust it, communicating, asking the right questions, trying to stay ahead of what’s the next thing they’re going to do. That type of stuff comes with experience and success.”
Byard’s first year with the Bears hasn’t resulted in the kind of team or personal success he wanted.
The defense fell off significantly at the end of the year after Brisker and defensive tackle Andrew Billings were injured and Eberflus was fired. Byard, who signed a two-year, $15 million contract in the spring, has only one interception for the third time in his career. He also has 116 tackles, four tackles for a loss, seven passes defended, two fumble recoveries and a sack. He classified it as “a solid year but not up to my standards.”
But Byard also feels like he “put everything into this thing every single day, every week.” That gives him peace of mind as the Bears head into an offseason of change with a coaching search ramping up.
And he hopes he has helped some of the younger players get through a difficult season too.
“A lot of players on this team haven’t lost as much as they have this year, so they’re looking for some type of encouragement from guys like myself,” Byard said. “Even though I haven’t been through this, I’ve experienced enough adversity in my life to help guys mentally throughout this whole process.
“Yeah, it’s been tough, but we’ve all overcome a lot of adversity in our lives. At the end of the day, this is still a game we love and enjoy playing. We have to continue to have fun and hope that the results we want will show up.”
