Pro Football Rumors
The Bears went through three left tackles last season — four if the Chiefs-ian Joe Thuney experiment in the playoffs is included — and will likely need at least two in 2026. Ozzy Trapilo is expected to miss most of the upcoming campaign after sustaining a patellar tendon tear in the wild-card round.
Although Chicago hopes Trapilo will return at some point during the season’s second half, Ben Johnson said earlier this offseason such a comeback is not a certainty. The timing of the 2025 second-round pick’s injury may force the Bears into a true stopgap season at left tackle. They look to be preparing a familiar name for the role.
Despite the Bears benching Braxton Jones early last season, The Athletic’s Kevin Fishbain notes the fifth-year blocker appears in the driver’s seat to reprise his role as the team’s starting LT to open the season. A former fifth-round pick out of Division I-FCS Southern Utah, Jones opened the past four seasons as the Bears’ starting LT but ran into trouble in his contract year.
Jones did not make it out of September in the starting role during Johnson’s first season, being benched in Week 4, and then landed on IR after an ankle injury. Although the Bears activated Jones from IR during the playoffs, he saw the Bears turn to Thuney — with Jordan McFadden at LG — against the Rams.
The team benched Jones for ex-UDFA Theo Benedet before giving Trapilo a rookie-year opportunity. When Trapilo went down against Green Bay, Chicago followed Kansas City’s playbook by kicking Thuney from LG to LT. Thuney, who has probably landed on the Hall of Fame radar thanks to a third straight first-team All-Pro season, will be back at his familiar guard post to open this season. Thuney, RG Jonah Jackson and RT Darnell Wright represent continuity for Chicago, which surprisingly lost center Drew Dalman to retirement.
Though, Jones technically counts as continuity based on his body of work. Despite the Bears starting four LTs last season, they have enjoyed a fairly stable run at the position over the past decade. Since 2016, only two players — Jones and Charles Leno — have started a Week 1 game for the Bears at the position. Leno moved into Chicago’s lineup early in the 2015 season and stayed on until 2021. The Bears released the veteran and plugged in Jones for 17 starts in Ryan Poles‘ first GM year. Jones has started 44 games at the position as a pro.
Being mentioned as a trade candidate before his IR stint, Jones re-signed with the Bears on a one-year deal worth $5MM. The contract can max out at $10MM. Pro Football Focus has graded Jones favorably, for the most part, as a pro. He rated as a top-25 tackle in 2022 and ’24, and the advanced metrics site slotted him 34th in 2023. He is also, as Fishbain confirms, going through his first healthy offseason since 2023. Jones suffered a neck injury in 2023...
