For years, the Bears haven’t done enough to protect their young quarterbacks. Each of them, whether it was Mitch Trubisky, Justin Fields or now Caleb Williams, has been responsible for their own trajectory, but a little more time in the pocket would’ve helped.
You would think an organization so in love with the glory days of old-school football wouldn’t need a reminder that everything starts in the trenches, but Ben Johnson grabbed the Bears by their collective shirt collars when he arrived at Halas Hall last year and made sure they didn’t miss it.
The NFL’s best offensive lines are built with premium resources — expensive free agents and high draft picks — and it’s not a place to cut corners. Sure enough, once they spent big to bring in left guard Joe Thuney, right guard Jonah Jackson and center Drew Dalman, it made Williams’ life easier.
Some problems the Bears believed they’d solved, though, came unraveled when Dalman stunned them by retiring at 27 and Trapilo suffered a major knee injury against the Packers.
That means they’re undergoing yet another significant reset on the offensive line, where cohesion is key and can’t be microwaved.
“A big part of o-line play is all five of us need a gel,” right tackle Darnell Wright said. “That’s a growing process. But it’ll get better. It’s gotten better.”
Going into his third season, Williams must progress and step into stardom regardless of what happens on the offensive line. The Bears are weighing whether to commit to a massive contract, and those don’t come with asterisks. They go to sure things.
Patrick Mahomes has made it work behind some shaky offensive lines, and Aaron Rodgers twice made the Pro Bowl despite taking 50 sacks in his early years. A quarterback isn’t special if he needs everything around him to be perfect.
It’s on Williams to take the next step in everything from footwork to decision making, and it’s certainly part of a franchise quarterback’s job to navigate and compensate for any potential roster deficiencies. But the sturdier the line is, the easier it’ll be for him to figure that out.
A faulty line was a decent-sized part of the pie chart for Williams’ mostly wasted rookie season, along coaching incompetence and his own shortfalls in throwing accuracy, indecisiveness and waiting too long for big plays to open up. That losing equation added up to a league-high 68 sacks.
The Bears rolled out a better formula last season: Williams was coached harder with no choice but to align with Johnson’s vision for the passing attack and the offensive line was dramatically better. Just 24 sacks trying it that way.
When Williams analyzed that reduction recently, he briefly mentioned having more trust in the offensive line last season, but stuck mostly to his accountability to avoid trouble with awareness before and after the snap.
The offensive line the Bears settled into late last season could’ve carried them through 2027 or beyond, and it was maddening to be readdressing it so soon after pouring money into the unit.
This time, however, they had fewer resources to throw at it as they explored options at left tackle and center. Their salary-cap situation was tight, which led to — on paper — shipping out more talent than they acquired, and by the time their first-round pick in the draft came up at No. 25 overall, the top six offensive tackles were gone.
They opted to pick up Dalman’s eventual replacement, Logan Jones, in the second round and roll with veteran Garrett Bradbury until he’s ready. Bradbury started on the Patriots’ Super Bowl team last season, is leading the line capably at the moment and almost certainly will be the starter.
“With Garrett, it really has been flawless so far,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “We haven’t had the pads on, but when you talk about the communication… things have been really clear and concise.”
The Bears still don’t know definitively whether left tackle needs a long-term solution because of Trapilo’s injury. They aren’t planning on him doing anything this season, but they’ve become increasingly optimistic over the last few months that it’s not a career-ender.
The idea of moving Wright to left tackle has been floated with Halas Hall ever since the Bears drafted him, but it’s never gone far. At this point, three seasons in and fresh off a second-team All-Pro selection, there’s almost no inclination to do it.
The Bears value right and left tackle similarly, and Wright likely will get a gaudy contract extension before the start of the season. He said recently he isn’t worried about that because, “I know I’ll be here for a long time,” and he’s correct.
So at left tackle, they’re counting on someone to emerge from a four-way competition among Braxton Jones, Theo Benedet, Jedrick Wills and Kiran Amegadjie. But what they’re really counting on is Johnson, with the help of offensive line coach Dan Roushar, engineering solutions through a combination of developing one of them into a viable option and scheming around any weak spot.
That’s one aspect in which Johnson set himself apart from predecessors Matt Eberflus and Matt Nagy last season. While those two seemed to get stuck when something went wrong, Johnson had Plan B, C and D at his fingertips.
The left tackle race isn’t as complicated as the Bears make it out to be. It’s Jones’ job to lose, just as it was a year ago, and the others will get chances to challenge. Benedet probably will end up as the backup swing tackle, and Wills and Amegadjie are fighting for roster spots.
The Bears are betting that this will be good enough, and while it’s never a good feeling to gamble at such an important position, everything about the offense feels like it’s in safe hands with Johnson.