Bears Camp Day 6 Recap w/ Courtney Cronin: Loveland Rising, Burden Slipping?

Bears Camp Day 6 Recap w/ Courtney Cronin: Loveland Rising, Burden Slipping?

Bad on Bears fans, another edition of the Chicago Bears podcast coming your way. Path the designer Courtney Cronin up here at Hall. Practice six is in the books. Courtney, we saw some pads popping today. It seemed like live tackling today and the defense took full advantage of it. We got to talk about what Caleb Williams did at practice today. Looked fine. Mhm. Looked fine. I think that’s a great word for it there. Fine. Uh we got to talk about what we saw out of the running game yet again. and DJ Moore spending some time in the back field. Also looking at Roma Dunce and how this offense is being built out. All that more in today’s episode of the Chicago Bears podcast. Hit that like button, subscribe to the page, lead a fivestar view. Y’all know what to do. A little bit cooler today, Courtney. Not uh not as sweaty by the end of practice. Sounds like I picked a good day to be in Bristol, Connecticut yesterday when um you guys were dealing with the horrific humidity, but it’s it’s that time of training camp. I know you said it’s day six. It feels like it’s day 40, which means we still have another month to go. It’s insane to think about, but six days in, you have a feel now for what these practices are. We know the intensity of Ben Johnson. We know what they’re expecting of the offense, how much they’re throwing at the unit. We know the defense is trying new things that some of these guys just haven’t been a part of. The amount of dime we’ve seen from dime packages with these DBs, more than I can remember seeing under the previous staff. But I think as we encroach on the week mark of training camp, there’s a lot to take away, both good and stuff that they can work on that the Bears probably feel they’ve gotten a lot of they have a nice sample size here to sort through as they start getting ready for the first joint practice, which is not till next week, but as you get in pads, you get to start to take shape. We’ll find out more about how they feel about the pass rush. We’ll find out more about the backfield rotation. certain guys that are working their way into the back field, but it’s it’s a different it’s a different part of camp now that they’re in pads and they won’t, you know, they won’t go back to shells until later on. Yeah. I think what’s interesting today, and I want to start off here, Coloulston Love, this is his third day essentially being in full team periods. Courtney, he’s getting the football a lot. Saturday when we were here, uh, he was throwing the ball, receiving the ball a ton. Yesterday, we saw him being a big part of the offense. today. Yet again, seems like Ben Johnson is really looking to use his new weapon this season. And it’s specifically where he’s looking to use his new weapon. I remember there was a move the ball period today where it’s third and seven. That’s a money down. You’re going to Coloulston Lovelin, the rookie tight end, who you expect to win his matchup there. I know that he said it was it was one of those situations where Caleb’s got to have trust in him to throw him the ball there, knowing it’s do or die. you’re either completing that and and moving to a first down or you’re off the field or knowing this offense, they might be going for it on fourth down. But for Coloulston to work his way into some first team reps early on after getting back and he’s been part of training camp since day one. He just has been in a ramp up period. I think you’re starting to see what the tight end usage is going to be, like what his role in the early stage of this install is going to be. And that can be your critical your critical go-to guy that’s not necessarily DJ Moore. It’s not necessarily Roma Dunay. You’ve got another weapon in the pass game that they feel pretty confident about to be working him into some pretty important situations early on. Yeah, it seems like Coulson is is getting a lot of the focus. And I I love the fact that the two positions that we see, I guess if we extrapolate out right, that are getting the ball a ton here, you’re seeing Coloulson Lovelin get it. You’re seeing Lamad Zakayas get it right now, who I guess we’re expecting that’s going to be Luther Burton, although today from what we saw at practice and from what we heard from Ben Johnson early this morning. Um, seems like maybe there’s more struggles than we thought. He looked fine in the walkthrough period when I had eyes on him yesterday. I guess they did another period in the afternoon yesterday and there was a lot of stopping the offense, resetting things because he was behind schedule. Well, we’ve heard from players and we saw it on day one last Wednesday when they get kicked out of a drill, the first team offense, because they couldn’t line up properly. There is so much that happens here pre- snap. It’s not just shifts. It’s not just motions. It’s it’s all of that and then some when they’re trying to throw off the defense. For somebody who hasn’t been out on the field since May, really since rookie mini camp, you had like one day of OTAAS in May and then gets hurt. I’m not surprised. I like I don’t care how talented you are. You could be a first round pick, first overall pick at receiver and it’s still going to be difficult if you’re not on the field knowing the timing, knowing the body language, the tells, the ver the silent communication, the cadence of the quarterback. If you if you li if if one person out of the 10 lines up wrong, Ben Johnson is very clearly going to call that out. And that’s good because it corrects the mistake on the fly. But definitely felt like there were some teaching moments today where Luther Burden was on the receiving end at the line of scrimmage of not doing something the right way and and you said it like Ben talked about this yesterday and he said he’s behind. He’s a little bit behind right now and that’s okay. Like I don’t it’s not a red flag to me. Like it’s a red flag that he hasn’t been out there because you know injury it’s like oh man like how long is this taking you to heal from a hamstring injury? How severe is it? And if you’re Luther Burden, I think you’ve got to manage all of it to like I’m asking the right questions in the meeting room. I know my plays. Like do the like get A+es on all the stuff you can control because right now he can’t control whether Zakias is going to be wide receiver three in this offense. I mean he came back off he came off a really good season for himself last year. His bounceback year. They didn’t bring him here just because you know they were like oh well we know Luther Burden when we draft him eventually we’re going to get there at 39. He might have some injury stuff. like that is somebody who is legitimately in competition for that role. But I think if you’re Luther Burden, you can’t think of it that way because he has so much to like catch up on. He’s been out there for two months. So timing’s first before skill before whatever unit you’re part of offensively. He’s got to get the timing part down. So all of like the pre- snap stuff, the PSPs, they keep calling it pre- snap procedure. So none of that’s a problem because right now for some guys it is. and he’s, you know, he’s behind everybody else cuz he hasn’t been out there. And we’re seeing it a little bit as he was trying to work in. He really only got in um for maybe two or three plays the day, but he was with the first team. He was with the first team. Did you think that was notable? I kind of did. I I thought it was notable because what what ended up happening was he was out there with the first team. The mo he didn’t motion the way he was supposed to and the ball was supposed to go to him. They ran the exact same play after that with Zakayas and it’s a essentially keep in motion, go out to the left side, turn around, catch the football. Zakayas made the play. Luther Burton didn’t know the play to go out there and make the play. There’s an expectation. That’s why I brought this this part of it up was it seems like there’s going to be heavy usage for that slot receiver and for the tight end in this. And we’ve seen offenses work like this in the past, Gordon. just doesn’t feel like an offense with as many weapons like this would be utilized that way. But this is what the Chiefs have recently done, right? We got one receiver. We’ve got Travis Kelce. This is what we saw a ton when we were watching the Patriots for all of those years with Gronk and I guess if you want to go 12 personnel and Aaron Hernandez and you would have a West Welker out there who basically was the receiver to make plays like it seems like they’re trying to build that kind of offense up and they’re trying to utilize some of the other weapons in different ways. Yeah. And I think the slot is going to be very important to watch because it to me it’s an interchangeable piece in this offense where Ben thinks he can probably put Coloulston there if he needs to. He’ll also put DJ Moore in there. He’ll use him. I mean, his role I think is fascinating what it’s going to become and what some of the foreshadowing just in hearing from Ben Johnson, but also seeing in practice a couple things where you’re like, “Oh, maybe he’s not maybe he’s not the number one receiver in this offense anymore.” But I don’t say that to mean his role is any less. And I think personally maybe more more like you have to have two receivers in the NFL. Like if you think about it, the best teams, whether it’s Minnesota, whether it’s the uh certainly the Lions and what Ben Johnson came from, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Philadelphia Eagles, everybody has two really really good to great receivers. Yeah. And the third one’s usually a guy you got to be like, we can’t let this guy get get away from us either. And that’s what they’re trying to design here. But I do think like I we were talking kind of bringing it back to that slot conversation. That’s going to be a really important like security blanket. Middle of the over the you know over the middle of the field throws some of the short stuff that Caleb Williams can execute because remember they’re trying to get him to take the easy completion when it’s there. Yeah. And it doesn’t have to be the hero play. It doesn’t need to be the deep ball that he tried to launch to DJ earlier which probably would have been a catch eye on Kyler Gordon. But nonetheless, I like seeing how they’re tinkering with what people’s roles are, especially the receivers and the tight ends of figuring out, can we put you in the back field? Are you going to be out wide? Are you going to be in the slot? Like, they’re definitely getting a variety of stuff. And for someone like Luther Burton, he will get a variety of stuff when he’s ready to handle that. To me, Ben Johnson, what he said today and what we’ve seen in limited action, a couple first team reps, not a lot, but that that to me is saying the coaching staff saying you’re not ready for it yet. Yeah, 100% expect any different. I I I’m not surprised. And I think what I love about it is it’s consistent with what the Bears have been trying to do with these rookies. Hey, you’re drinking out of a fire hose. We’ve heard that term you used up here a couple of times here. Get out there. Let’s see what you got. The pressure’s on. You messed this play up. You’re not out there anymore. like it’s not and and you know I I wasn’t over there. I saw a few tweets that said that Ben Johnson was getting into Luther Burton on that. It was Luther Burton’s first play with first team offense. It doesn’t matter. You have to be at the standard. You should have been in your book. You should know what’s happening right now. And I thought, you know, yesterday was a good starting point. I think these are the teaching moments that again this team truly needs to be great. And he probably is. Like from everything we’ve heard, he’s asking the right questions. He’s in meetings. He’s being attentive. But there’s something that’s there’s something different about learning like on paper and then translating it into real time. That’s when things can be very different. It’s just like, you know, you study for a test and you get, you know, you get in front of it and it’s like, okay, well, all the information is different. I have to think on the fly. I have to think more quickly. And that’s the process he’s going through right now. Yeah, 100%. I think what’s also factoring into a lot of this is how complex this offense is going to be this season. This does not seem like an offense that you can just walk onto the field and I just looked in a book and say, “Oh, I’m going to be able to go out there and pick it up.” I thought the the epitome of that was the DJ Moore play that you brought up, right? We’ve seen DJ Moore used in the back field a couple of times and then we see him from the back field running out on a go route down the sideline. It’s like, wait a minute, like are we going to use him in like you said that Debo Samuel manner? Like that’s not normal offensive play calls. not something you just pick up on by watching from the sideline and the complexity of this is not something that I think can be overstated because Ben Johnson like I go back to what Roma Dunay said on Saturday how this is not a scheme that you is so complex that he doesn’t expect to know everything in year one and you hear that on the surface you’re like whoa I thought you guys need to be proficient with this how are you going to be able to run it well if you don’t know everything there’s gradual steps that the Bears can take to make sure that their guys know the plays have the full complement of the of the playbook. But there’s also things that Ben Johnson has to hold back from them. It’s just too much sometimes. And he had something interesting to say because when we talked about it today, it was a matter of he went back to look at what training camp and what practices looked like, what the install looked like. Year one of him being a play caller in in 2022 in Detroit. two years later or you know two seasons later 2024 it looked very different and it was much more complex much more layered and what he said is that it’s not like the Bears went back to 2022 Detroit they are picking up from where last season starting it’s much more complex they’re being thrown a lot more on their plate so I don’t anticipate that someone like Caleb Rome DJ any of these guys are going to be 100% proficient in every little detail of the scheme year won. And it it’s interesting because we so we have Monday Night Football, obviously, first game of the season against the Vikings. And I did a sitdown interview with Caleb today just to, you know, kind of go through some of the like stuff from last year, go through stuff from this year. And I think it’s it’s poignant you bring this up because we talked about like the complexity of this scheme. And at some point for Caleb, he wants it to be my offense, meaning like me and Ben. And that’s Ben gives me the first couple words of the play call like, “Oh, cool. I got it.” like, you know, a very veteran-like mentality and like highlevel stuff that he knows right now he’s not anywhere close to being there and that’s okay, but there’s got to be a level of patience associated with the learning process here. I think Ben Johnson for as much of a stickler to the details as he is, and you’ll see him, you know, get into guys if things aren’t right, there’s also a patience being executed to understand, I’m throwing a lot at these guys. This is much more than I had with Jared Goff and I’m on Ross St. Brown and all these players when they were, you know, in year one with me. And by the way, Jared had been to a Super Bowl, had Ben with a quarterback guru had been in the NFL. Oh, 10 and one, right? Like they were, you know, it took a lot for him to get comfortable in this. The whole offense to get comfortable. I don’t think that Ben though, from what he’s saying, I don’t think he expects or at least will, he’s not okay with it taking that long this time around. And that’s where you get the, you know, the level of proficiency these players have to have at a different rate than they did in Detroit. But also understanding it is really difficult. It is really like there’s checks. There’s, you know, nobody used like more pre- snap motion than Detroit last year. It might have been like one or two more teams. They third or fourth highest usage in the NFL. That takes a lot to master because that’s all in Caleb to be like, “Hey, first obviously the guys need to know what what the roles are and what their jobs are, but he’s got to know what he’s calling out, the protections, all of those things, but then accounting for all this stuff moving before the snap. So, it throws off the defense.” That’s not year one stuff, guys. Like, I I don’t know what to tell people because they expect that there’s going to be, oh, he’s going to come in, it’s a new offense. It’s built around him. He’s going to be perfect. I don’t think it’s going to look perfect for a while. I don’t know if it ever will look perfect, but it’s not going to look to the level of high-flying Detroit Lions, 30 points a game, offense proficiency, all this stuff, trick plays in week one in September. It’s just not. I I think what’s interesting, too, is because of that, right, that a lot of people are looking, they’re saying, well, isn’t this what Shane Waldron did, I heard Albert Brerier talking about, you know, it’s he’s concerning with how he’s concerned with how much they’re giving Caleb. And I heard Black and I heard Abdalah uh uh on Black and Abdala saying that, you know, this is kind of what we saw happen to our quarterbacks before. They got a ton on their plate. And I think the biggest difference is that the next step is the most important. I’m giving you all this, but I’m also remembering what you did well, what you didn’t do well, and I’m taking the rest off of your plate so that we can run these plays the right way. That’s how you build successful offenses. That’s how you go out there and you win games before a team is supposed to be ready to win because they don’t know everything in the offense. How long do you think it took Tom Brady to master what they were doing in in uh uh um New England, right? Like the offenses take time to develop. There’s always that surface layer. Even Pat Mahomes, I remember Pat Mahomes was in year three, what was he two Super Bowls in by that point? He had won one and he said, “I figured the offense out now. I know what I’m looking at.” Yeah. He was in year three of that. he had already won a Super Bowl. So, it is possible to be successful in a system that you don’t know what’s going on or 100% I should say. You might not have like all of the keys to unlock the doors. It’s like in a video game when there’s certain levels and you have to beat one level to be able to like unlock the next one. Yes. I think that that part’s going to take the longest time for them to be able to figure out, okay, what can we do really well early on that it’s going to look clean? you’re not going to have pre- snap procedures that end up in in penalties or false starts or, you know, delay of game, whatever it is. And some of that we have seen out at camp, but working through how much is being asked of these players and also knowing how much more you can push them because there it’s it’s interesting you bring up the Shane Waldron stuff because remember that was supposed to be like way too complex of an offense for Caleb. It’s a progression based offense. He could do it with Gino Smith because Gino was a veteran. Caleb was a rookie. I think obviously personnel changes help better offensive line, better plan for the receivers by and large, um, tight ends, the whole thing. But they said they were not going to hold anything back from Caleb in May of his rookie season. At some point, I think coaches do, whether, you know, however much it is, you have to pull back a little bit because it’s like you can’t move too far ahead in the book without having read, you know, the chapter before to get the context. I think that’s just the most important part of making of just a learning process for any quarterback. Yeah. And I the biggest thing that always stands out to me, I’ll never forget um I think it was on the recap uh and Cap had Keenan Allen on and he said that Thomas Brown why Caleb started looking better was because Thomas Brown told him where his eyes needed to go on the play. You need to go one, two, three, four. And I think sometimes you get so lost as coaches trying to give somebody everything, you miss a very key step in that process. And it looked like when you watch games before that, Caleb had no idea at times where he should have been looking, where his eyes needed to go on the play. Why is he missing this guy over here? Well, he’s looking over here, right? Like those are the things that I think the coaching staff now the steps they’re not going to miss. We’re letting you know this is where you need to go. And to the point, Ben Johnson’s blowing plays dead if he’s not on the read at the right time. Plays dead. Don’t worry. Like because it’s like, why go through it? Why go through it? We’re not we’re not trying to get the scramble drill out of this. We want to run the play the right way. And obviously like there will be, you know, free plays in in the season. That happens every once in a while, but like if it’s not right, if you notice something right away is off, they’re not going to run it. They’re not just going to run it for like, oh, like, all right, just for the hell of it, like get it done. like that’s, you know, I don’t think there’s I think Ben’s seen that’s not a fruitful exercise for this team. Yeah, 100%. Um, how are your what is your assessment of how Caleb Williams looked? I’ve heard multiple different opinions in the media room and things like that. To me, I I said the word fine and and fine based off of yesterday looking like a solid day as well. Seems like he’s still going the right direction. I didn’t feel like he went backwards. No, I I think that, you know, the two-minute period when they didn’t move the ball, like that’s sometimes the defense is going to dominate. And it’s first day of pads. I think the defense set the tone physically. That’s um you know, that’s something I wouldn’t say like defense won, offense lost. I just think that the defense got the better end in certain situations. But he looked like he’s building on what he did. I think Saturday, in my opinion, was his best practice when he was out here. And um that was their last day before they went into pads. There’s there’s certainly a different level of physicality attached to it. I mean, there’s some live tackling stuff where guys are like tackling to the ground. There’s a moment where I think DeAndre Swift got smooshed by um Andrew Billings. I’m like, wow. Okay, they’re really taking that part seriously. They’re leaning into it. But, you know, for Caleb, there was a bad snap early on in 11 on 111. That’s something that what did Ben Johnson call it? High school hairy. High school and hairy stuff. Um like that stuff can’t happen in the fact. Have you heard that before? I know what it meant, but I had never heard that before. I I think I mean obviously it means amateur hour like but I had never heard that term before and um someone who’s I I just think it’s a play on words and someone looked at me when I was like what does this mean? They looked at me like I had 10 heads and they’re like what do you mean you don’t know high school Harry? I was like no I don’t no I don’t know who high school Harry is but um I think he looked fine. Like fine’s a good way to put it. Solid good. Not great. Like because they’re you know uh the move the ball period they you know they get the third and seven to Coloulston Lovelin and then I think the drive stalls out after there. that’s okay. Um because they were still moving the ball up until that point. He was converting passes. He was converting downs, especially third down, which is critical. So, I think I think he’s been good. I think it’s I think it’s the right amount of measured progress that you expect after a week of training camp. Now, a week from now, what’s the conversation going to be? Is it going to be that he’s lighting up the defense that, you know, he’s he’s, you know, escalated so much over the span of a week? know because what we know about this offense is is really complicated. So I know it’s not like the headline grabbing news or wow Caleb Williams makes massive jump one day in practice. It’s it’s going to be measured to get there which I know a lot of fans are going to want progress to happen much sooner. I just don’t believe that to be like a realistic thing. There’s there’s a lot he’s learning and it’s and it’s not just learning this season. I’ve said this a couple of times, Courtney. It’s not just him learning this season. It’s him unlearning last season. Yes, there’s a lot of things that you have to bad habits that he’s got to break. Bad habits last season and Ben Johnson’s breaking. I mean, when I tell you the first few days of this practice, the amount of times where Ben Johnson was like, “That’s not what the outcome of this play needs to be. Run it again.” That’s why he ends up throwing Caleb Williams out of practice in the out of out of the I didn’t say it, Ben. Calm down. Out of the drill there, right? Like that’s that’s why they throw the first team offense out because we’re not getting the desired result because you’re going to those habits that you had before. We’re not doing that this season. Like there’s it’s not just learning. It’s a portion of unlearning that you have to do. And that’s hard to do over where we at now three months of four months of Ben Johnson basically being able to work with Caleb Williams at this point. That there’s a lot that still has to be done. Yeah. And the habit breaking could take years. Like there’s habits that happened in college that that are been playing football and he’s been doing things one way for a very long time and been very good at it a specific way for a very long time. Ben has said it. Caleb has acknowledged it. He’s got to play within structure in this offense. That takes time to know, all right, I’m not hitting the eject button here. I’m not going to just default to the hero play. He said that like week one or you know the last time he spoke publicly he said it can’t be me always looking for the big play learning those habits in training camp that’s the whole like chipping away element that takes way more time might not seem like you’re making a whole ton of progress with it with it but like over time you know if you’re doing it right if the habits truly are starting to dissolve and you’re building up better ones then then you’re going to see a more efficient quarterback but I I think that That’s probably the hardest part. More than just learning the offense is like breaking bad habits that maybe have been a a crutch for him in the past of things he defaulted to or deferred to that Ben doesn’t want him to do anymore that maybe he won’t be able to operate the offense well if he does it anymore that way. And it’s I think what I love is right like we talk about them blowing the plays dead and stuff like that. We know Caleb Williams can escape. We see it out here every and they’re like you got that in your bag. It’s what you do best. Don’t get rid of it. but we need you to operate here. When you need to utilize that, make sure that you go to it. But if you trust what we’re doing, you’ll be able to move the football down the field. That’s what a lot of those plays felt like, right? When I see, you know, the 11 on 111 periods, they’re not moving the ball up the field every time there’s a completion. They’re not moving it back every time there’s a false start. So, I see the PI that ends up happening. A beautiful ball from Caleb Williams to DJ Moore. I assume that Ben Johnson’s going to find a way to get the offense into the end zone on that. That’s a successful play. We saw a a DeAndre Swift run. That was for a big game. That’s a first down that keeps the chains moving. The play call is now different then. This is an install period. This is not a game. And I think that’s where so many people when I see them come with their list of like, well, Caleb Williams was seven for 15 today. It’s like none of that matters. No. in the long run. I think I mean certainly they’re measuring it because the 70% completion percentage thing is still very much uh a goal of theirs and they have to measure it off of seven on seven and 11 on 11 but there go seven on seven a day. That was crazy. Um I haven’t seen I actually wonder what to make of that because usually like the early parts of padded practices to be able to like pull off of some of the intensity. I mean well actually those can be pretty intense. I guess I was just a little surprised at the structure of that. There was a longer move the ball period, less two-minute. Um, but yeah, I mean, even one-on- ones, we haven’t seen any one-on-one battles yet, really. We saw that. We saw that the day that you weren’t here, we saw a lot of the one-on- ones. I saw the offensive line. Grady Jarrett and Joe Toney were going at it according to that’s going to be fun. It was like two gorillas in a phone booth. It was It was beautiful to watch. I as a as somebody who wanted the offensive line to be good, I was like, Grady Jarrett would have ripped Bill Murray a new one last season. like this is Bill Murray’s still here, but but it it’s we we’ve seen it a little bit more as as we’re starting to get going. We saw it yesterday. Um the one thing that I do love about kind of how Ben is is building this out though is he’s doing the thing, at least to me, it feels like he’s doing the things that he feels are important. Seven on seven’s fun. If Caleb sucks in seven on seven, I don’t care if he goes out there and he dominates in 11 on 111. You don’t play football seven on seven. I feel like that’s the when Mitch was out here, when Justin was out here, we’d see these guys dominating seven on seven. It was like, well, yeah, he’s the better athlete. It reminds me of, and it’s gotten a lot quieter the last couple of days. Although, today was a good day for the defense overall. Dominique Robinson without pads, no one’s going to be able to stop him. Like, he’s a better athlete than 90% of the people out there. When pads are on, now all of a sudden, Braxton Jones stands a chance. Now all of a sudden you’re seeing Aussie Chapillo have great reps against this guy. It makes a difference and and it seems like they’re focusing on the important parts of football versus some of the seven on seven stuff we Yeah. And I mean there there’s definitely there’s a there’s a purpose for it. Obviously there’s a value to it. You know the receivers and the DBs being able to go one-on-one and and show who wins um or who has like the capabilities of winning those matchups that matters because that translates to a full team game. But I I’m with you on how because you’re seeing the whole huddle operation with 11 on 111 and seeing how Caleb like I I don’t know. I haven’t noticed anything as far as him like getting the play call like in the huddle seems like they’re going from huddle to line of scrimmage a lot more smoothly than they have the last couple of days. And that to me is almost as big of a win as anything else you could do on the field. Yeah. No, much smoother. I mean, like the day two or three of training camp, like we weren’t running plays like it was like, “Oh, false start. Oh, that’s bad. Oh, that’s bad.” And we’re I think you have to put things in perspective and you remember this like I do, Courtney. Last season there were false starts all throughout practice, three weeks in, four weeks into practice. We’re not seeing that nearly as much. We’re not seeing them not be able to get the playoff. The growth is happening. It’s just not happening in the ways that right now we’re seeing 30 yard passes down the field on every single play. And I think that’s the part where to me this coaching staff is very different. Even I I thought something Kyler Gordon said today really stood out on how different things are. He talked about, you know, what playing live football really means. We saw live tackling today. He said over the last couple of years that they did none of that under Matt Iberluse and that you learned football by playing football essentially. I get that and I take some of that with a grain of salt because like I told you pre-show when we were talking about that like I definitely remember a a live tackling period early on in the flu tenure when Rocoan Smith like his first day back in pads after ending his hold out just laid out David Montgomery and there was definitely a moment there. Maybe he went rogue maybe. Um, I was going to say, was he supposed to like, but there, you know, the tackling to the ground, the the emphasis that they’re putting on the physicality. I wonder if some of this had to do with what is going on in the New York Jets organization right now. Aaron Glenn had his first practice, the guy that was the defensive coordinator with the Lions last year, who Ben Johnson went against every single day in practice. He had a very, very heavy physical live tackling, tackling to the ground, which you really don’t do much at all ever. Not even like, you know, training camp’s one thing, but like definitely never in the season. Yeah. Like you have thud periods where like you’re supposed to it’s like, you know, wrapping people up waist up, but the apparently in New York they’re doing like pretty heavy sessions on that. And I do wonder if Ben Johnson sees that. It’s like, all right, I you know, this guy came from where I came from. I want to match that level of intensity, too. So, you know, to hear what Kyler said today, I I would imagine at times there were moments where they did that, but I mean, this early in camp, I can’t remember seeing many live situations like six days into training. Well, I think that’s the thing, too, right? Like, I don’t remember seeing them ever go to the ground. I do wonder like you’re not really supposed to. That’s how injuries happen. And luckily, they got away today without any injuries. Hey,

Pat The Designer and ESPN’s Courtney Cronin break down all the key takeaways from Day 6 of Chicago Bears Training Camp, brought to you by The Advantage Dealer Group.

Pat reacts to how two of the Bears’ top rookies — tight end Colston Loveland and wide receiver Luther Burden — are trending in opposite directions early in camp. The crew also dives into Ben Johnson’s complex offensive system and how it’s challenging the entire unit, including rookie QB Caleb Williams, who is already working on forming better habits as he adjusts to the NFL.

It’s a full camp breakdown from Halas Hall you don’t want to miss.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 – Colston Loveland & Luther Burden Trending in Different Directions
00:11:00 – Ben Johnson’s Complicated Offense
00:21:00 – Caleb Williams Learning New Habits

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