Do Bears have answer at left tackle with Braxton Jones? Why is it still a question?
Bears head coach Ben Johnson was waiting for a sign, a moment of Zen perhaps.
“Hopefully some clarity,” he said at Halas Hall this past week, “that’s what we’re looking for.”
Aren’t we always looking for a little clarity during a typical Bears season? Often it comes late in the season when we’re face-first in the football gutter, appealing to a higher power.
In this case, Johnson was just trying to find some hope in his left tackle situation. He was noticeably frustrated. Not Mike Tice coaching J’Marcus Webb aggravated, but annoyed nonetheless.
You would be, too, if you’re a first-time head coach, a so-called offensive genius, and it’s the second week of August and you’re not comfortable with what’s considered the most important position on the offensive line.
“This thing has gone on now (for) three-and-a-half weeks, and I said and I’ll say it again, we’ll go as long as we need to go to find the right guy,” he said. “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.”
It was a straight shot at his incumbent left tackle, Braxton Jones, who is coming back after fracturing his left ankle in Week 16. That injury required surgery, but the Bears don’t have a ton of patience for his return to form. It’s three weeks until the opener and their non-Braxton options aren’t great.
The talk of a four-man open competition at left tackle dominated Bears talk this week and led to a lot of “If you have four left tackles, you don’t have one” kind of jokes.
But four was a bit of a reach. The Bears aren’t placing second-year quarterback Caleb Williams’ health in the hands of second-year tackle Kiran Amegadjie. Rookie Ozzy Trapilo seemed to be the strongest contender to Jones’ job, but he just started playing the right tackle position with the second-string group. He wasn’t wowing anyone on the left side of the line.
So that meant it was a two-man battle between the veteran Jones, a fifth-round pick in 2022, and Theo Benedet, the undrafted Canadian who hasn’t played an NFL game and was best known for his, uh, musical performance in last summer’s “Hard Knocks.”
Coach Johnson is live with the media https://t.co/6z3yO0DM0a
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) August 18, 2025
Could the Bears really go with the untested Benedet at left tackle? I don’t believe it, but that’s what they were selling this week as he worked into the first-team rotation at practice.
“He was probably overlooked to start this competition, but the longer this thing’s gone on, there’s a strong argument for what he’s put on tape,” Johnson said during the week.
“There’s a lot of things to really like about Theo,” offensive line coach Dan Roushar said before Wednesday’s practice. “He’s had probably as much improvement as any player we have in the group. With that, there’s a lot of things for him to improve on, and he knows that, and we’ve got to work on it. He is working his tail off. He has put himself in a position to go compete for a job somewhere in this group.”
In Sunday night’s 38-0 beat down of the disinterested Buffalo Bills, Jones played the first two series and then Benedet replaced him for the rest of the first half. Neither faced the Bills’ starting edge rushers, so you can only take so much from it, right?
“I think this game is going to go a long way,” Johnson said after the game. “And I would be remiss to say I could really tell from the sideline view. We’re going to have to look at that tape to know for sure. But we kind of came into this game saying that this was going to be a good one for that eval.”
What is he looking from Jones?
“To me, it’s consistency,” Johnson said. “He’s shown flashes of his old self and yet, there’s still been some low moments where … I know we’re going to get beat in this league. When you’re playing tackle against some of these pass rushers in this league, you’re going to lose a rep or two. The biggest thing is, well, there’s two things. One is how do you bounce back when that happens? And the other one is how did we slow down from losing too fast? If we’re going to lose, we want to lose slow. And so we’ll see what it looks like here tonight. But I felt like we had good protection throughout. There were times when we were running the ball and you kind of feel that as you’re calling the game and it would stay on schedule there. So we’ll see what that looks like.”
I haven’t watched the tape either, and my seat in the press box isn’t the best. But in his two series, Jones mostly held his own against backup edge rushers A.J. Epenesa and Michael Hoecht, keeping Williams’ pocket clean as he completed 6 of 10 passes for 107 yards and a touchdown.
I counted one time on the Bears’ opening touchdown drive where Hoecht pushed back Jones, but Williams was unbothered and threw an 18-yard completion to Colston Loveland on the opposite side of the field. Then, in the second drive, on third-and-5, Epenesa nearly got by Jones, but the left tackle slowed him down enough that Williams got a pass out to Moore before the blitz got to him.
Recognizing cover one blitz throwing with anticipation before D.J. Is out of his break. 👀 #DaBears #Bears pic.twitter.com/CQ1BkgVBjG
— Clay Harbor (@clayharbs82) August 18, 2025
Benedet protected Tyson Bagent for the rest of the first half, and he definitely gave up more pressure. Bagent’s legs saved him a handful of times.
I don’t really see how Jones doesn’t start in Week 1, but what Johnson’s admission this week shows is that the team would likely consider looking for outside help at the position. I’d expect them to be scouring other rosters for insurance options. It’s either that or rousing Jason Peters out of retirement.
“At some point, we have to pick somebody that’s going to start Week 1,” Johnson said during the week. “If we don’t have that clarity, over the next … call it a week and a half … and we will do that. If we have to continue to battle it out over the course, through the bye week … that’s the nature of the NFL. I’d love to have five guys start on the offensive line for all 17-plus games but that’s just not reality. We are going to have a lot of guys cycling through. It’s attrition, it’s a long season, that’s how this thing works. We are not afraid of it. It will be next man up. If one guy is not performing up to snuff, then we will find someone else who can.”
During the week, Roushar was honest about the inconsistency they’ve seen from Jones.
“I thought on Friday against in Miami in the one-on-ones (in joint practice last week), and I’m not speaking out of my mouth here, I saw him set with balance, his hips were down and he used his length,” Roushar said. “And I saw a player we could win with. When I watched him Sunday, as I told him, I said, ’You reverted back to whatever this is for you, but that’s not acceptable.’ We’ll have a standard, we’ll maintain that standard or hold those guys to that standard because what he does or anybody that’s playing the left tackle, or any other position, impacts the entirety of our unit.”
This is something that should’ve been addressed in the offseason, which is a knock against general manager Ryan Poles.
Instead of drafting a left tackle in the first round, the Bears went with tight end Colston Loveland before taking Trapilo out of Boston College with their second pick of the second round. Could Trapilo move into that left tackle role? Maybe, but for now, it seems like they’re leaving him at right tackle, where he’s more comfortable.
“It’s really play speed,” Johnson said this week. “There are times where the feet have gotten a little bit slow at times, both in the run game and in pass pro. The mental of just speeding up, ball, snap, let’s go ahead and get in a good physical position here to block the man in front of me, it’s been a little bit of up and down.”
Given the Bears’ expenditures on the coaching staff and offensive line this offseason, having a question mark at left tackle is a not-so-gentle reminder that the Bears still like to leave some stones unturned. It’s like an organizational tic that they can’t get rid of.
Going into the season with Johnson calling plays and Williams at quarterback, but without a set left tackle, is like buying a plot of land in Arlington Heights and not having a cogent plan on how to fund a new stadium. It’s just bad business. Much like how the Bears will wind up paying more to build that stadium in the suburbs, they will have to pay up to sign a left tackle next offseason.
But that’s a problem for 2026. Right now, the Bears have to hope Jones is the clear answer at left tackle for 2025.
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