![\"Pictured](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bears-nfl-sept26.jpg\")
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103 years ago this month, a Baylor Bear appeared in an NFL game for the first time. That would be Russ Blailock<\/a>, an offensive lineman who made his debut with the Milwaukee Badgers in 1923 — just three years after the league was founded, and only a year after it changed its name to the National Football League.<\/p>\n At least one Baylor Bear has played in the NFL every year for the last 90 years<\/a>. You have to go all the way back to 1936 to find the last time an entire NFL season was played without a Baylor Bear.<\/p>\n This year, there are 15 Bears in the league to start the season: nine on active rosters, one on the injured list, and five more on practice squads. Here are the Bears we\u2019ll be cheering on Sundays:<\/p>\n Those nine Bears will begin 2026 on their team’s active roster. Three of the nine were honored as team captains this year: Bernard with the Bills, Matiscik with the Jaguars, and Pitre with the Texans. Weeks, meanwhile, is set to begin his 17th NFL season — one behind Matt Bryant for the most of any Bear.<\/p>\n Six more Bears are close to getting playing time. Ben Sims<\/a><\/strong> (BA ’22) begins the year on the injured list for the Miami Dolphins, and five others are on their team’s practice squad: Gabe Hall<\/a><\/strong> (BA ’23) with the Philadelphia Eagles, Xavier Newman-Johnson<\/a><\/strong> (BSED ’21) with the New York Jets, Garmon Randolph<\/a><\/strong> (BSED ’23) with the Cincinnati Bengals, Michael Trigg<\/a><\/strong> with the Dallas Cowboys, and Kole Wilson<\/a><\/strong> with the Cleveland Browns.<\/p>\n (Something else worth noticing: 12 of these 15 Bears completed their degrees at Baylor, including three who also earned graduate degrees — definitely a point of pride for this program.)<\/p>\n As they take the field this year, these Bears are part of a Baylor Line through pro football that goes back more than a century, and makes us all proud in the process.<\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, NFL Bears!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 103 years ago this month, a Baylor Bear appeared in an NFL game for the first time. That would be Russ Blailock, an offensive lineman who made his debut with the Milwaukee Badgers in 1923 — just three years after the league was founded, and only a year after it changed its name to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25292"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25304,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25292\/revisions\/25304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n