Windy City Gridiron
The Chicago Bears had a private practice on Saturday in Lake Forest.
The Chicago Bears had to cancel the public viewing of Saturday’s practice at Halas Hall due to weather, but the team still took the practice field for day four of training camp.
After some rough outings this week, it sounds like the Bears offense had a decent day in practice today. Caleb Williams was perfect in the two minute drill (outside of a delay of game), and it ended with Williams finding Rome Odunze for a touchdown pass on a goal line fade.
Rookie TE Colston Loveland made his debut in team drills, connecting with Williams and catching two passes in the 7-on-7s portion of practice and one during team drills.
Darnell Wright was given a rest day and did not practice today. Luther Burden III was also still out, though Head Coach Ben Johnson said during his press conference that the rookie WR continues to get closer to practicing. Theo Benedet practiced with the first team at RT in place of Wright.
LT Braxton Jones participated in a limited capacity in team drills for the first time at camp, but it was mostly Kiran Amegadjie playing with the first team at LT (until leaving early with an injury). Doug Kramer played Center with the second team before leaving practice with what was believed to be a left foot injury.
Coach Johnson noted before practice that the Bears offense went through their fourth install on Friday evening as the team continues to acclimate to an entirely new system. They’ll ultimately go through 12 installs, so they’re 1⁄3 of the way there.
The Bears went through their 4th install last night and have 12 total, according to Ben Johnson. So still a lot of new things these players are learning, digesting and getting to execute at practice for the first time.
Friday was the team’s first run through in the red zone, where the offense struggled. On Caleb Williams’ 2 interceptions, Johnson diagnosed the first - a bang-bang play where Terell Smith forced the ball loose and Jaquan Brisker grabbed it out of mid-arm for an INT - as a route the receiver could have run better, but also that Williams should see how tight that coverage was at the goal line and moved on to his next progression. On Williams’ second INT, the QB threw the ball too low to an area in the end zone where it “has to be us or nobody.”
Johnson: “These are things that you learn from and unfortunately sometimes you have to do it a couple of times to get burned by that hot stove before you realize hey, I don’t want to touch that anymore.”
Now on to some Tweets!
