Bears head coach Ben Johnson walked into his press conference at Halas Hall on Friday morning with a pep in his step. The Buffalo Bills were in town, and the Bears were about to test themselves in their second joint practice of the preseason.
“We’ve got a Super Bowl contender in town, and we’ll find out a lot about our team,” Johnson said. “I know they’re geeked up and ready to go.”
The Bills presented a good opportunity for a young Bears team still getting acclimated to Johnson’s coaching staff. Bills quarterback Josh Allen is the NFL’s defending MVP, while Buffalo has been a contender in the AFC for the past few seasons.
Here are the biggest takeaways from Friday’s practice.
Offensive penalties continue
Over the past week, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and the first-team offense haven’t shown progress in eliminating pre-snap penalties. That continued in Friday’s practice.
The Bears’ first-team offense committed four false start penalties Friday during team drills. Two of those penalties came during its final team session, where the unit started its drive with back-to-back false starts.
Johnson told reporters earlier in the week that the pre-snap penalties weren’t just on Williams. He said it’s something that comes along with learning a new, difficult offense. It’s also something that happens when the starting offensive line isn’t fully settled.
But three weeks into camp, the mistakes shouldn’t be happening as much anymore.
“Yeah, just gotta clean it up,” rookie tight end Colston Loveland said. “Can’t have that this late into training camp. This should be talking about football, football corrections and everything. We take it on the chin. Next play and just try to be better next practice, next play.
“So, yeah, gotta clean all those things up, and that’s on us as a team. We all got to take accountability for that and, yeah, we’ll get it cleaned up.”
Offense shows good, bad
When the offense wasn’t committing penalties, Williams continued to show growth, stringing together a few good days in a row.
He completed 9 of 10 attempts during 7-on-7 drills, in which he continued to connect with wide receiver Rome Odzune. Odzune first made an impressive catch when he jumped high to snag the ball down the middle of the field. Williams then fit in a tight pass to Odunze past defenders.
“He’s a heck of a player, route runner, strong hands,” Loveland said of Odzune. “In the run game, you know, finishing, he does everything the right way. He’s a guy I really look up to and talk to about a lot of things.”
Loveland got involved when Williams found him in the middle before he raced down the sideline for a long touchdown pass in the initial 11-on-11 drill. Williams and the offense failed to score a touchdown during the first-team red zone drills, but he then connected with Odzune and wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus for touchdowns.
Williams and the first-team offense had mixed results, ending the day well during their final two drills.
The Bears drove down to the Bills’ 11-yard line after taking over at their own 46, trailing 27-21 with 1:00 left in the game. But Williams threw two incompletions, was sacked, and then threw a pass that fell for an incompletion in the end zone as time expired.
After starting the final drill with two straight false starts, Williams rebounded by hitting Zaccheaus with two big passes, including a 45-yard touchdown. But the Bears ended the day with two sacks.
No clear leader in the left tackle battle
The competition for the starting left tackle spot was the most interesting position battle coming into camp. Three weeks later, there’s no clear leader.
The battle started with returning starter Braxton Jones, rookie Ozzy Trapilo and Kiran Amegadjie all vying for the spot. But that changed this week when second-year offensive lineman Theo Benedet joined the mix while Trapilo started working at right tackle.
Benedet took most of the first-team snaps Friday, while Jones worked mostly with the second team. Jones took snaps with the first team during the red-zone drills, then replaced Benedet after four snaps during a final drive that started with two false starts.
Johnson previously said he’d like the spot secured as soon as possible so that the whole offensive line can become comfortable with each other. But he’s willing to let the competition continue into the season.
“We’d love to go ahead and solidify that spot and move forward from there,” Johnson said. “And it might be one of those things where when we make that decision, it’s not final for the season. It could be 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.”
Defense gets the best of Allen, at times
Friday was a good chance for the Bears defense to see what it can do against an MVP quarterback and one of the best offenses in the league. The group held its own at times. But Allen and the Bills also showed why they’re a Super Bowl contender.
The Bears’ defense started strong with a good 7-on-7 period where safety Jaquan Brisker flew to the ball a lot, and safety Kevin Byard intercepted a pass. Rookie linebacker Ruben Hyppolite added another pick later on as well off of backup quarterback Mike White.
“We’ve got a Super Bowl contender in town and we’ll find out a lot about our team. I know they’re geeked up and ready to go.”
But Allen and the Bills turned it on during red zone and situational drills. After former teammate linebacker Tremaine Edmunds intercepted a pass during the red zone session, Allen found Keon Coleman for a touchdown. Allen connected with Coleman again during the one-minute drill, and he completed a few long passes during the final session of the day.
Edmunds was sure there were things to fix after Friday’s practice, but he felt the defense took a step against one of the best.
“Obviously, you play this game to go against the best,” Edmunds said. “[Allen’s] playing big-time ball. So being able to see where we are, and obviously, there’s a lot of film that we’ve got to go back and look at, so I don’t know every little thing that happened, but it’s always good when you’re going against great competition.”