It only took one day of padded practice for Bears defensive lineman Grady Jarrett to look like an absolute problem, in a good way originally appeared on A to Z Sports.
On Monday, training camp for the Chicago Bears got turned up a few dials with the pads fully on and players allowed to finally hit one another.
Getting to this point of the offseason is an exciting time for players, coaches, and fans because it’s hard to bring out the best in one another until the pads are on, especially in the trenches.
Now that we reached that point, battles can really be assessed such as the left tackle battle and the energy level is only going to go up.
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One player who thrives in this kind of practice setting is veteran defensive lineman Grady Jarrett. The free agent addition has an aggressive mindset and plays with a lot of intensity, which is why the Bears sought to add him to this defense.
Not long after the draft, general manager Ryan Poles mentioned how he’s excited to see Jarrett finally get unleashed during training camp and be a problem on the field that the offense needs to account for.
On Monday, Jarrett finally got to bring that aggressiveness and intensity to the practice field, which of course brought a tough challenge for the offensive line.
“Any O-lineman can learn a ton from going up against Grady,” center Drew Dalman told reporters on Monday. “He’s a phenomenal player with tons of strengths, I don’t know if he has any weaknesses. Someone that’s a good pass rusher like that, and a good run player, is going to test your fundamentals and your technique and not let you get away with any issues you have in your game.”
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Dalman knows from experience. The team’s new starting center spent the first four years of his career with the Atlanta Falcons lining up across from Jarrett each day at practice and during the offseason.
“Having excellent players, which we have many on defense, to exploit your weaknesses and teach you to overcome them, in my opinion, is one of the best teaching tools,” Dalman said. “Having him, and the whole defensive line, as a resource (in Chicago) is awesome.”
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Jarrett was reportedly “disruptive as ever” and “a problem in one-on-one drills” but there’s another area in which he’s been disrupting the offense.
“The first day (of camp), he was talking a lot of stuff to the offensive linemen,” safety Jaquan Brisker added. “We heard it. . . I like it though. He was talking a lot, he was like ‘I’m no rookie, I don’t know why [the offense] is running over here’ and I’m like, ‘Let’s go.'”
A lot of national outlets slammed the Bears for giving a three-year deal to Jarrett hours after being released by the Falcons. It only took one day of pads for everyone to see what kind of dominant impact he can have for this defensive front.
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This story was originally reported by A to Z Sports on Jul 28, 2025, where it first appeared.