{"id":184917,"date":"2025-07-06T03:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T03:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/184917\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T03:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T03:21:10","slug":"bears-lb-ruben-hyppolite-in-contention-for-starting-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/184917\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears LB Ruben Hyppolite In Contention For Starting Spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this offseason, Bears head coach\u00a0Ben Johnson\u00a0made it clear an open competition would take place<\/a> for the weakside linebacker position. Training camp will of course be critical in determining a winner, but an early standout emerged during spring practices. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[RELATED: Bears Not Eyeing Late Pass Rush Signing?<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Ruben Hyppolite<\/a>\u00a0impressed the team\u2019s coaching staff during minicamp and OTAs, ESPN\u2019s Courtney Cronin writes<\/a>.\u00a0T.J. Edwards<\/a> missed time due to a soft tissue injury, something which allowed Hyppolite to receive considerable reps with the starting defense. The fourth-round rookie primarily played at middle linebacker in college, but his early showings at the weakside spot were encouraging.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done a great job adjusting to that speed as we\u2019ve gone through, and that\u2019s going to have to show up once we do get the pads on,\u201d\u00a0Johnson said of Hyppolite.\u00a0\u201cBut I think he\u2019s been improving every single day, and really, we\u2019re hoping that course continues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of his five years at Maryland, Hyppolite topped 60 tackles on three occasions. His pre-draft testing included a 4.39-second 40-yard dash, and translating that speed to the NFL will be key in his efforts to secure a starting gig right away. Edwards and Tremaine Edmunds<\/a>\u00a0are set to reprise their first-team roles in 2025, and both veterans have multiple years remaining on their deals.<\/p>\n

For the coming campaign and beyond, though, the Bears will need to find a consistent producer at the third LB spot. Johnson and new defensive coordinator\u00a0Dennis Allen will spend training camp and the preseason evaluating Chicago\u2019s options to replace Jack Sanborn<\/a>, which also include\u00a0Noah Sewell<\/a>,\u00a0Amen Ogbongbemiga<\/a> and Swayze Bozeman<\/a>. Hyppolite will be worth monitoring as the summer unfolds as he looks to continue his early bid to win the competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this offseason, Bears head coach\u00a0Ben Johnson\u00a0made it clear an open competition would take place for the weakside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,692,391,2493,7,6,6879],"class_list":{"0":"post-184917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bears","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-bears","11":"tag-chicagobears","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-ruben-hyppolite"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114804141918149199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}