Thoughts from Practice

I had the chance to attend Bears practice today (thanks to Jeff Berkes of Windy City Gridiron for hooking me up with a ticket when I wasn’t able to land one on Ticketmaster), and want to share some of what I was able to observe.

I’m going to focus mostly on injuries and depth chart, because it’s hard to take too much away from individual performances in one practice.

Injuries

• Six players had no pads on and did not participate in practice at all today: G Nate Davis, RB Roschon Johnson, LB Noah Sewell, CBs Kyler Gordon and Tyrique Stevenson, and S Jaquan Brisker.
  • I did see Gordon and Stevenson doing some running and cutting before practice, so I would guess they’re both fairly close to returning.
• Several other players joined them on the sidelines as practice wore on, including OT Darnell Wright, WR Collin Johnson, DT Andrew Billings,  DE Montez Sweat, CB Tyrell Smith, and RB Ian Wheeler.
  • Wheeler and Wright have been working their way back from injuries, so maybe partial participation was the plan for them. I’m not sure.
  • Smith’s injury was the only one I saw happen. He dove to the ground while defending a deep pass to DJ Moore in 11-on-11 action and didn’t get up until a trainer had taken a good long look at him. From what I could tell, they were looking at either his left arm or shoulder, and he seemed to be in a lot of pain.
• Rookie OT Kiran Amegadjie, who has yet to practice after being drafted with an injury he suffered during the season last fall, did some work pushing a blocking sled before practice. Hopefully that’s a good sign that he is nearing a return, though I won’t be shocked if the Bears keep him on the non-football injury list so that they can transition him to IR at the start of the season without him ever taking up a roster spot.

Offense

• Most of the offensive work was done on the far field away from fans, so I didn’t see much until they came to the closer field for drills against the defense in the back half of practice.
• I can say that Velus Jones Jr. worked exclusively as a RB today, continuing from yesterday’s practice.
• At the start of full team drills, the starting offensive line, from right to left, was Darnell Wright, Ryan Bates, Coleman Shelton, Teven Jenkins, and Braxton Jones.
  • I wouldn’t read too much into the C, as the Bears continue rotating Bates and Shelton at that spot.
  • 2nd string was Jake Curhan, Matt Pryor, Jerome Carvin, Ja’Tyre Carter, Larry Borom.
  • 3rd string was Jake Curhan, Matt Pryor, Doug Kramer Jr., Ja’Tyre Carter, Aviante Collins. We saw very few 3rd string reps though.
  • After Wright left with an injury, Borrom moved to 1st string RT and Aviante Collins moved to 2nd string LT.
• The Bears’ official depth chart right now lists 2nd string QB as Tyson Bagent or Brett Rypien, but Bagent took every single rep with the 2s today, which meant Rypien only got 2-3 total reps in 11-on-11 action. Unless they’re rotating days too, they seem to have a pretty clear order at the moment.
• It was a rough day for the offense, as they couldn’t get much going in 7-on-7 or 11-on-11. This was true for both 1st and 2nd string.
  • This matches the theme of most of camp, based on reports from those who have been there.
  • Today was particularly troublesome because the defense was without about half their starters.
  • A lot of blame has been placed on the OL, and both QBs were under fairly constant pressure again today, but the offenses struggled in 7-on-7 too, which has no pass rush or coverage. After one 7-on-7 session Caleb Williams yelled out in frustration because he couldn’t find anybody to throw to.
  • Williams had a couple overthrows on deep passes today, and a few more instances where there seemed to be a miscommunication between him and a receiver about where a route was going to be run. I would classify the offense overall as sloppy.
  • One positive for the offense was that pre-snap penalties, which have been a huge issue for most of camp, were not as prevalent today. The starters had 1 false start, and the backups had 2.
  • I’m not panicking about the offense. They have a new scheme and half the players are new, including a rookie QB, and their offensive linemen have been shuffling in and out of practice with injuries. It’s going to take time to come together, and in the meantime they’re going against a defense in year 3 with the same scheme and very few new players to incorporate. I expect the offense will have it more together when games start in a month, but I also think we’ll see them improve as the season wears on and the players gain more familiarity with each other and the scheme.
• With Roschon Johnson out, I found it notable that Travis Homer got a good bit of work with the starters in two-minute situations. He seemed to rotate ahead of Khalil Herbert when the offense was going to be pass-heavy. This makes me suspect we’ll see plenty of both Herbert – who is the best runner on the team but really struggles in the pass game – and Roschon Johnson in relief of D’Andre Swift this season.
• The one way the offense did see some success was throwing to the running backs. They ran a lot of screens today (my guess is that was an install emphasis on the day), and had several more checkdowns to D’Andre Swift and Travis Homer that picked up solid yardage. Caleb Williams did a pretty decent job of finding the safety valve when needed.

Defense

• First, a couple observations about players that stand out just looking at them.
  • Tremaine Edmunds is huge. He looks like a defensive lineman, and is easy to spot among the other LB.
  • Likewise, Andrew Billings is a massive human being. He’s easy to pick out among all the DL, as he’s much thicker than any of the rest of them.
    • That reminds me, the Bears still have a pretty glaring hole at backup nose tackle. I expect they’ll look closely at waiver cuts there before the season starts.
  • Finally, rookie defensive end Austin Booker looks really thin. He looks super long when standing by himself, but he’s not any longer than the other defensive ends, he just looks longer because of how thin he is. Reminds me visually of Leonard Floyd (the fact that he’s wearing 94 probably contributes).
• There were a ton of defenders out today, so some interesting rotations that might give us an idea of where guys stand on the depth chart.
  • With Jaquan Brisker out, Elijah Hicks and Jonathan Owens rotated as starting safeties.
  • With Kyler Gordon out, Jaylon Jones and Josh Blackwell rotated as the starting nickel back.
  • With Tyrique Stevenson and then Terell Smith out, Greg Stroman Jr. stepped in as a starting outside CB.
  • With Montez Sweat and Andrew Billings out, we saw Austin Booker, Dominique Robinson, and Zacch Pickens all get a chance with the starters.
    • Robinson got reps both at DE and DT, similar to DeMarcus Walker.
• As addressed above, the defense looks much more cohesive and ready to go than the offense right now. They were impressive in coverage, even without a pass rush and with a ton of defensive backs out hurt.
• I also noticed Montez Sweat switching sides quite a bit before he left with an injury. He seemed to get pretty even snaps on both sides of the line.
• Practice started with a long walkthrough period where the defense spent a good bit of time working on looks where defensive back blitzes from the slot while a defensive lineman drops into coverage. That must have been an install priority for the day.

Special Teams

• The Bears had a host of players working on catching punts from the jugs machine at the start of practice, including DeAndre Carter, Travis Homer, John Jackson, Ian Wheeler, Demetric Felton, Rome Odunze, Dante Pettis, Josh Blackwell, Tyler Scott, Freddie Swain, Greg Stroman Jr., Nsimba Webster, and Khalil Herbert.
  • Given that super long list, it’s notable that Velus Jones Jr. wasn’t one of them. It appears that ship has sailed, and the team has now shifted to trying him at running back in their ongoing effort to find something besides kick return he doesn’t completely suck at where he can contribute.
  • When they ran punt/punt return drills, the three main guys returning were Rome Odunze, Dante Pettis, and Travis Homer. Josh Blackwell and Nsimba Webster joined them halfway through the drill. So those appear to be the main contenders to be the punt returner.
• During kick return drills, Velus Jones Jr. and Khalil Herbert were the starting returners. Tyler Scott, Dante Pettis, Nsimba Webster, and DeAndre Carter also got backup reps there.
• The 1st string blockers for kick return were Elijah Hicks, Amen Ogbongbemiga, Jack Sanborn, Adrian Colbert, Travis Homer, Khari Blasingame, Daniel Hardy, Jaylon Jones, and Jonathan Owens.
  • This is notable because this can indicate reserves who are more likely to stick on the roster than their offensive or defensive depth chart spots might suggest.
  • Defensive linemen were doing another drill at the time, but Austin Booker and Dominique Robinson joined Daniel Hardy to mix in with the kick return units.