3-man battle for Chicago Bears No. 1 OLG spot

BOURBONNAIS - In every training camp, there are legitimate position battles and then there are theoretical position battles created by coaches when they spew platitudes like, "Everyone has to win a job."

The battle for the Bears' starting spot at left guard is a legitimate battle, and there are three contenders. Eric Kush, who has five career starts in parts of five seasons, is listed as the starter and has gotten most of the first-team reps.

But fifth-year veteran Earl Watford, who has 21 career starts, including 19 with the Cardinals the previous two seasons, has gotten work at left guard with the ones as well. He also has lined up with the first team at right guard when Kyle Long is given occasional days of rest as he battles back from three surgeries.

And the Bears project second-round draft pick James Daniels as a starting guard, sooner rather than later. But he has been getting most of his recent work as the No. 2 center because backup C Hroniss Grasu missed multiple practices with an ankle injury. Daniels was mostly a center at Iowa, but the Bears want to keep Cody Whitehair in the middle for continuity, since he's started there in each of his first two seasons.

So that leaves the battle for the starting LG position fluid.

"Yeah, I would say it is," coach Matt Nagy said. "There's a good competition right there. You have a couple of guys there with obviously Kush and James, and you have Earl as well. There's three good guys right there who are battling it out. That's good for us as a team. So we'll just let them keep battling and see where it goes."

The Bears finished their Olivet Nazarene University portion of training camp with Sunday's practice. They'll fly to Denver Tuesday for joint practices Wednesday and Thursday with the Broncos, before their preseason game on Saturday. A final decision on the starting left guard probably won't be decided by then, although it would help in building continuity. But it's more important to get the best five players out in front of QB Mitch Trubisky.

"You'd love that," Nagy said of an early decision. "But we're not there, so we've got to let it play out."

The Bears did not use the 39th overall pick in the draft on Daniels to have him be a backup, but he's still just 20 years old, so they're not anxious to rush him into a starting job before he's ready. One school of thought believes that narrowing his focus specifically to guard would speed his development there, since that's where the Bears see his future.

Daniels is noncommittal.

"It really doesn't matter," he said. You're going to have to learn to play multiple positions, and I'm not good enough to be able to just focus on one position. So I'm glad that coach is giving me reps at center and guard, so I can be able to play (at) whichever position the team needs me."

Nagy says the rookie is ahead of the learning curve at this point, but isn't ready to make any commitments.

"We had the injury bug early on at the C position, so it forced us to put him at center because we were just so depleted there, and he did a good job," Nagy said. "He'll still continue to work there, but we also want to make sure (which we thought) when we drafted him, that he's got that versatility to play guard and center. Right now, he's above the line with where he is (in his development). He has a lot of room to grow, but the kid has 'the want,' so that's half the battle."

Daniels was asked about his chances of starting by Week One, but he says he's not looking that far ahead. He has a much more of a narrow focus for now.

"I'm not even thinking about the first game," he said. "I'm just thinking about going to Denver, having good practices and a good game. That's the only thing I'm focusing on."

• Bob LeGere is a senior writer at Pro Football Weekly. Follow Bob's Bears reports on Twitter @BobLeGere or @PFWeekly.