The Bears are still trying to solve one of the most important spots on the field, and Ben Johnson isn’t pretending otherwise.
Left tackle has been a mess of sorts all summer in Chicago, with no one fully seizing the job and the Week 1 answer still not locked in. Braxton Jones has remained the favorite from the start, and even when he missed time with injury earlier in camp, nobody managed to take the job away from him. That alone tells you where this competition stands.
Ozzy Trapilo has already gotten back on the practice field after tearing his patellar tendon in last year’s playoffs, but he is not in play for the opener and likely won’t be for a few weeks after that either. Jedrick Wills Jr. and Kiran Amegadjie were essentially nudged out of the left tackle race before the second preseason game when they both began taking reps at right tackle. They still lined up on the left side against the Cincinnati Bengals, but that looked more like getting through the preseason than a real reopening of the battle.
Johnson addressed the situation before the Bears’ first practice of the week and made it plain that the job is still unsettled.
"That's still an ongoing spot. It’s a hot spot for us", Johnson said."
Obviously we talk about it almost every time I'm up here. And yet, I don't know that we are 100 percent sold on who that guy's gonna be for Carolina (in Week 1) yet."
He added that the next few days could matter a lot.
"We're gonna still work through it. That's where today's gonna be huge for us.
Thursday's (joint practice against the Tennessee Titans) gonna be huge for us. And Saturday's gonna be huge for us as well."
On Tuesday, Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune reported that Jones was working with the first team at left tackle, while Wills was taking second-team reps. Theo Benedet, who had been the other fully healthy player left in the mix, worked as the second-team right tackle because that lines up with his likely role as the swing tackle off the bench.
So for now, the Bears’ Week 1 left tackle looks like a temporary answer until Trapilo is ready. That’s the reality Johnson is managing, even if his tone suggests he’d prefer someone would simply grab the spot and end the conversation.
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