If there’s one thing we don’t love about the Chicago Bears’ offensive roster heading into 2026, it’s the left tackle position.
We wouldn’t have said that, most likely, had Ozzy Trapilo not ruptured his patellar tendon in the Bears’ Wildcard win over the Green Bay Packers. And we might not have to say it much longer if Trapilo actually manages to return to the field sooner rather than later after being activated off the PUP list.
But for now, Chicago will be going into this season in a similar situation
to last year: hoping left tackle doesn’t become a major liability for an offense that wants to fly high.
Head coach Ben Johnson made sure to hedge his bets when talking to the media this week heading into joint practices with the Tennessee Titans, declining to name a Week 1 starter just yet.
“I don’t know that we are 100% sold on who that guy is going to be for Carolina yet,” he told reporters. “We’re going to still work through it. That’s where today’s going to be huge for us. Thursday [a joint practice at Tennessee] is going to be huge for us, and Saturday is going to be huge for us as well.”
On paper, it would seem the Bears already have their plan in place.
Veteran tackle Braxton Jones, who re-signed with the Bears this offseason on a one-year deal, has basically been the front-runner at left tackle for the entirety of camp, even after missing some time with injury, and resumed that role against the Cincinnati Bengals last weekend, getting the first 15 snaps at left tackle before giving way to Theo Benedet. One would assume Jones will continue working with the first team this weekend and likely gets the first crack at the job in Week 1.
But Jones’ future after that feels far less assured.
For one thing, Benedet, a former undrafted tackle, has been playing well this preseason—so much so that he essentially forced the coaching staff to take Kiran Amegadjie and Jedrick Wills out of the competition on the left side and have them practice backing up Darnell Wright, who just suffered an injury of his own. If Wright is expected to be okay, one could see both Amegadjie and Wills getting cut, allowing Benedet to play the swing role with Jones starting.
That said, there’s always that nonzero chance that Benedet actually wins the job. After all, he did play admirably in relief of Jones last year, though his effectiveness had a ceiling. If he’s meaningfully improved, it’s not unfathomable that he could relegate Jones to the bench, which might make things interesting if Trapilo stays on the active roster.
Which brings me to that point: if Trapilo isn’t put on short-term IR and actually has a chance to play sooner rather than later—unlikely, I know, but what’s he even doing back on the field so quickly in the first place?!—what’s the Bears’ plan there? He was clearly the best left tackle on that team last year when healthy. The problem is that knee injuries like this can be tricky. It’s no guarantee he’ll really be back to full strength and athletic ability so soon.
But if he’s even a sliver of his old self, it’s going to be hard not to put him right back at left tackle and let him and Wright cook. That, in turn, could create a good problem: having too many capable tackles. Jones probably isn’t getting cut with his contract. But if the Bears find themselves with a glut at the position, perhaps a trade could be in order.
For now, it feels academic, on a day-by-day basis, to just keep slotting Jones in at left tackle until something changes. But the way Johnson is talking and the wind is blowing, it’s probably not going to stay that way for long.
