How the best trait Dillon Thieneman has makes him a perfect fit on the Chicago Bears

LAKE FOREST, Ill. - Well before he was the Chicago Bears’ first round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, Dillon Thieneman had six interceptions in his first season of college football.

He was a true freshman. Starting was a remarkable feat of its own. He earned his spot, but he wasted little time showing why.

In Thieneman’s first college game against Fresno State, the Bulldogs had the ball in the fourth quarter, leading by five with just under 5:30 minutes to play. Quarterback Mikey Keene threw a deep pass to the sideline. Thieneman was playing deep in the middle of the field, and raced to the sideline to intercept the pass.

Purdue defensive coordinator Kevin Kane didn’t believe it at first, even though it happened right in front of him.

"I was like, holy s**t. We got somebody here," Kane said. "That's a true freshman making this play. This is unbelievable."

Those types of plays were a result of Thieneman’s best trait as a football player. That trait is a reason why he was the first defensive player the Bears took in the first round of the NFL Draft since 2018.

Big picture view:

Kane remembers Thieneman joining Purdue as an early enrollee.

The Westfield, Indiana, product was a three-star safety prospect and the 14th-ranked player in the state. He still showed up at Purdue and immediately made it clear that he was different.

"You just could tell like he was different from a lot of other people," Kane said. "Not just because of how he is athleticism-wise, but it was all his approach and his work ethic. He always wanted to outwork people and he kept his mouth shut and he just went to work."

That work ethic included his ability to take tough love and hard coaching.

"It was fun to watch because he really didn't care what was being said," Kane, who coached Thieneman for his two year at Purdue, said.

That’s Thieneman’s best trait.

Coaches never needed to waste time with Thieneman. He wanted the most direct coaching possible in his football career. That personality is what gravitated him towards the Bears’ front office and coaching staff, specifically Bears coach Ben Johnson.

Thieneman said he and Johnson had a meeting on Friday after he first arrived at Halas Hall where they immediately got into what his role will be on the team.

"I can feel his body language start to get excited about somebody," Bears general manager Ryan Poles said of Johnson as they scouted Thieneman on Thursday. "You could feel it. Again, it's that style of play that (Thieneman) has that, like I said, is contagious. It's the type of player that we want on our football team."

That type of football player was born as a four-year-old kid, watching football games on TV. Thieneman would point at the players and say he’d be one of those players someday.

In order to get there, he needed to be coached hard. He found that early on in high school, and Purdue made sure to continue that for him in West Lafayette.

Kane remembers coaching Thieneman in the moments where made a mistake. If Thieneman did, he owned up to it. No matter the mistake, big or small, he wanted to know why he made a mistake and then set out to fix it.

"Those are the things that you look for," Kane said.

Coaches never want to demean a player, but they need to be firm to get their point across. Thieneman accepted it all, no matter how hard his coaches ripped off the band-aid.

"He could handle that stuff," Kane said. "You could tell he's been coached that way before and he wasn't scared of that."

That trait, the desire to be coached hard, is what made him the best player on his Purdue teams. However, modern-day college football makes it difficult to sustain the norm.

Dig deeper:

After the 2024 college football season, the staff at Purdue was fired after just two seasons. Thieneman entered the transfer portal and was instantly one of the best safeties available.

He came up with a hard plan and stuck to it.

"I had the goal set that I wanted to go one year and go," Thineman said. "Going through that and I wanted to put everything I could into that knowing that if I did decide to stay, it was the right decision. If I decided to leave, I put everything in, so I made the right choice going to Oregon."

There was just one problem. Teams that wanted him were sugarcoating him. They talked him up to try and sweet talk him into transferring.

Then came Oregon and head coach Dan Lanning. He began speaking a language that Thieneman gravitated toward.

"They didn't sugarcoat anything," Thieneman said. "They told me exactly: you think you're a good player, this is what you need to work on, this is how we get you better. This is how we developed guys in the past."

From there, it was an easy decision. He was a Duck, and he created some of his favorite moments on a football field.

His favorite was the game-ending interception against Penn State in 2025. 

"It's a white-out game, College GameDay, the stadium's going super loud, double overtime," he said. "To get the pick and then everything just goes silent. I could hear all the Oregon fans and my family yelling up in the stands. That was awesome."

Thieneman helped Oregon to a berth in the College Football Playoff. Oregon made a run to the CFP semifinals before losing to Indiana.

That plan worked. Thieneman entered the draft and was billed as a first-round pick after shining in the pre-draft process. It landed him in Chicago, where Johnson and the Bears’ staff are known for a style of coaching that lacks any kind of sugarcoat.

That move to Oregon strategically prepared him for the NFL.

"Making the leap to Oregon was preparing me for the next level already," Thieneman said Thursday. "I'm going to a new place, new coaches, new scheme, new environment. So, I'm used to that change. I know how to make it and what works for me and what doesn't. So, I'm kind of able to grow from that last experience and I think hit the ground running."

Now, he’s a Chicago Bear.

He brings a craved versatility to the backend of the Bears’ secondary, and will be a weapon for defensive coordinator Dennis Allen to use as he sees fit.

There won’t be much of a learning curve for Thieneman, though. His receptive ability for hard coaching is what will help him shine with the Johnson coaching staff.

"It's a quiet, quiet confidence where they weren't going to say a whole lot, but they knew they were really good," Kane said. "You don't see them all the time, but you get one every so often, and then they don't blink when their number's called. That's the thing that makes Dylan great: you never bat an eye when he goes out there. Those are the really good ones."