Bears

Bears HC Ben Johnson is looking to solidify the team’s left tackle position, with three players currently vying for the spot, including Braxton Jones, Ozzy Trapilo and Kiran Amegadjie.

“We’ll go as long as we need to go to find the right guy,” Johnson said, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN. “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. We’d love to go ahead and solidify that spot and move forward from there. And it might be one of those things where, when we make that decision, it’s not final for the season. It could be that we have to reassess after a couple of weeks of the season, or by the bye week, we might have to reassess. It might be something that goes on. Wouldn’t be ideal, but that’s the thing with the league.”

Bears OL coach Dan Roushar spoke about how the holes in Jones’ game have prevented him from securing the left tackle job.

“On the day off, [Jones*] and I had a little communication,”* Roushar told reporters. “I thought on Friday against Miami in the one-on-ones [during a joint practice] — and I’m not speaking out of the side of my mouth here — I saw him set with balance. His hips were down, and he used his length, and I saw a player that we can 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, and so every day we have to go in and we’ll have a standard. We’ll maintain that standard or hold those guys to that, because what he does, or anybody playing the left tackle or any other position, impacts the entirety of our group.”

The team is sending Trapilo to right tackle with the second-team unit as they hope to get him experienced at both positions and increase his movement speed. Meanwhile, Amegadjie is working his way in with the backups after a leg injury caused him to miss the first preseason game.

“There are times where the feet have gotten a little bit slow at times, both in the run game and in pass pro,” Johnson said of Trapilo. “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.”

“He’s missing some quality reps there,” Johnson noted on Amegadjie. “He was getting better, too. That’s the shame of it. He’s getting better. We were very pleased with the trajectory in which he was headed. Hopefully, we’ll get him back here sooner rather than later so he can get right back into that mix. *This is not going to be a revolving door. That’s not what we...