Yes, a bad Jeep wheel bearing can cause uneven tire wear. When a bearing develops play, the wheel no longer sits at the exact angle it's supposed to, which throws off your alignment at that corner. The tire then wears unevenly, often along one edge, even if everything else is in good shape.
A wheel bearing's job is to hold the wheel perfectly steady while letting it spin freely. Once wear creates looseness inside the bearing, the wheel can tilt or shift slightly under normal driving forces, especially while turning or braking. That small, inconsistent movement changes how the tire contacts the road, and tires that don't sit flat wear faster on whichever edge is taking the extra pressure. This kind of wear pattern can be easy to miss when glancing at your tires, since it often shows up more on the inner or outer edges rather than across the whole tread.
This is one of the reasons a wheel bearing problem is worth catching early rather than letting it linger. Beyond the noise and safety concerns, ongoing play in the bearing keeps grinding down that tire unevenly the whole time you're driving on it, which can shorten the tire's life meaningfully and lead to replacing it sooner than expected. If you're also hearing a hum or feeling a vibration along with the uneven wear, that combination points fairly clearly toward the bearing rather than a simple alignment issue.
It's also worth knowing that replacing the tire alone won't solve the problem if a worn bearing is the underlying cause. A brand-new tire mounted on a wheel with a bad bearing will develop the same uneven wear pattern, just on the fresh tread. That's an expensive cycle to get stuck in if the actual issue never gets addressed.
If you've noticed one tire on your Jeep wearing faster than the others, it's worth having both the bearings and the alignment checked together. Hoover Street Auto Repair in Ann Arbor can look at both at once, so you're addressing the actual cause instead of just replacing the tire and running into the same wear pattern again.