The Chicago Bears made several moves to upgrade the offense this offseason. However, there is one position group, in particular, that first-year head coach Ben Johnson wants to see more out of right now.
With Chicago's second exhibition game scheduled for Sunday night against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium, Johnson addressed the area that undoubtedly will garner the bulk of his attention. To the surprise of very few Bears fans, I'd imagine, that specific area is none other than the offensive line, with the left tackle spot being of extreme importance.
Protecting the blindside of Caleb Williams cannot be understated after the franchise cornerstone was sacked 68 times as a rookie. That simply won't be acceptable once the 2025 regular season kicks off and Johnson's most recent comments regarding the ongoing competition at that spot reinforce that.
Bears' LT Group on Notice by Ben Johnson Before 2nd Preseason Game
Sunday's matchup against the Bills will be an important one when it comes to figuring out which group of five will be the first line of defense for Williams in Week 1. This will be a competition that goes down to the wire, though, and Johnson stated as much. He wants someone to go out and win this job, not be handed it because they appear to be the best possible option.
"We'll go as long as we need to go to find the right guy," Johnson said regarding the starting LT spot, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com. "But we'd like to see someone go ahead and make it clear to us that he is that guy, and we just haven't seen that yet as a staff. There's been too much up and down."
While Johnson was honest when saying there is a real possibility whoever wins the job coming out of training camp, he refuses for this to be a scenario where Chicago is constantly shuffling options in and out of that always important left tackle position.
One of the quartet of Braxton Jones, rookie Ozzy Trapilo, second-year tackle Kiran Amegadjie, and former undrafted free agent Theo Benedet will need to separate themselves from the pack in order to be the answer that Johnson is looking for at the position.
"This is not going to be a revolving door," Johnson said. "That's not what we want. We want one guy to clearly come out and say this is his job."
As important as it will be for one of these players to earn a job in the starting lineup, they are all competing for spots on the depth chart. That makes this the most intriguing of all the training camp battles occurring in the Windy City this fall.