{"id":291558,"date":"2025-08-16T01:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T01:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/291558\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T01:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T01:50:09","slug":"theo-benedet-enters-bears-lt-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/291558\/","title":{"rendered":"Theo Benedet Enters Bears’ LT Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the Bears\u2019 top training camp battles has come at the left tackle spot. The competition is ongoing<\/a>, and a fourth contender appears to have emerged.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: Recapping Bears\u2019 Offseason<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Theo Benedet<\/a>\u00a0has seen time with the starting offense during three practices this week, as detailed by ESPN\u2019s Courtney Cronin<\/a>. The 2024 undrafted free agent spent last season on Chicago\u2019s practice squad, but with the left tackle competition being labeled wide open by new head coach Ben Johnson, opportunities have presented themselves recently. Benedet worked at left and right tackle during the Bears\u2019 preseason opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s right in the middle of it,\u201d\u00a0Johnson said.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been very, very excited about Theo and what he\u2019s done both on the right and the left side. He was probably overlooked to start this competition, but the longer this thing\u2019s gone on, there\u2019s a strong argument for what he\u2019s put on tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benedet entered the NFL after playing collegiately in Canada. The University of British Columbia product has yet to play a regular season snap, so it would certainly come as a surprise if he were to land the Week 1 job. Still, the fact that Benedet, 23, has inserted himself into the conversation is noteworthy. Incumbent\u00a0Braxton Jones<\/a> recently received full medical clearance and he has also seen time with the starters up front during camp.<\/p>\n

Second-round rookie\u00a0Ozzy Trapilo<\/a> has worked at both tackle spots this summer. The Boston College alum primarily operated as a right tackle in college, but he could find himself on the blindside depending on how the coming weeks play out. 2024 third-rounder\u00a0Kiran Amegadjie<\/a>\u00a0has been in the mix, although he found himself with the third-team offense on Wednesday (h\/t Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune<\/a>). The Yale product has missed considerable time this summer with a leg injury, hindering his chances of winning the starting gig. Johnson aims to have a clear-cut winner in place soon, and the upcoming preseason game could prove to be telling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll go as long as we need to go to find the right guy,\u201d\u00a0Johnson said (via Cronen).\u00a0\u201cBut we\u2019d like to see someone go ahead and make it clear to us that he is that guy and we just haven\u2019t seen that yet as a staff. There\u2019s been too much up and down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of the candidates for the left tackle gig could see action on Sunday against the Bills. It will be interesting to see how Benedet in particular fares as the Bears seek out clarity regarding the overall depth chart up front.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the Bears\u2019 top training camp battles has come at the left tackle spot. The competition is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,1706,692,391,2493,7,7398,6,681,42677],"class_list":{"0":"post-291558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bears","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-braxton-jones","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-bears","12":"tag-chicagobears","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-kiran-amegadjie","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-ozzy-trapilo","17":"tag-theo-benedet"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115035938830496228","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291558","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=291558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}