8 things we heard at Chicago Bears rookie minicamp, including excitement about 1st-round pick Darnell Wright’s potential

The Chicago Bears held their rookie minicamp over the weekend at Halas Hall and will reconvene May 16 for a three-week stretch of organized team activities.

General manager Ryan Poles and coach Matt Eberflus are confident in the roster upgrades the team made the last two months and eager to see how everything comes together in the weeks ahead.

During an important stage of the spring for a team looking to make a big leap in 2023, here are eight things we heard at rookie camp.

1. Optimism is flowing for the potential of first-round pick Darnell Wright.

Wright has two practices as a Bear under his belt and a long way to go to get fully acclimated to what’s required of him. The Bears coaching staff is eager to get to work developing the prized offensive tackle, with offensive line coach Chris Morgan already impressed with Wright’s feel for the game.

“The game is kind of slow for him,” Morgan said. “That’s one of the things we really liked about him. For some guys, when the ball is snapped they just play. Things look slow for him. He puts his hands where he wants to put them. He’s very controlled in his sets. He’s got good tempo.”

Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy first worked with Wright in February when Getsy coached the American team at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. Getsy had little difficulty identifying the elements of Wright’s skill set that stood out.

“It’s unique for someone that big to be able to bend and be that athletic and as explosive as he is,” Getsy said. “It’s just hard to come around guys who are that big and that long. The length is unbelievable. And the power is unbelievable. And to have the athleticism to go with it, too, was all really cool.”

2. The emphasis on rhythm and timing in the passing game will continue throughout the offseason.

As has been well-documented, the Bears had the league’s least productive passing offense in 2022 with 130.5 yards per game — the sixth-lowest average of the last 25 years. No one at Halas Hall is dismissing that reality. And there has been ongoing chatter about the need to improve the rhythm and timing of the passing attack with quarterback Justin Fields at the controls.

Quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko spoke Saturday of the team’s studies this offseason to diagnose and correct its passing problems. Some of it, Janocko said, revolved around first finding examples of what went right last season.

“What did we do well?” he said. “Where did we get a lot of completions? And what were we doing mechanically to get those completions? How are we staying in rhythm and then how can we build on that?”

The Bears want Fields to polish his footwork and continue working on his rapport with all of his receivers as he works through each stage of the offseason program. Fields and the passing game will need to show clear improvement this season if the Bears are to head in the right direction.

“We’ve got to take a step forward,” Janocko said. “That has to be a strong point to help this team win games.”

At a minimum, with the addition of wide receivers DJ Moore and Tyler Scott, tight end Robert Tonyan and running backs D’Onta Foreman and Roschon Johnson, Fields should have more to work with. Moore, in particular, has the Bears excited after amassing 364 catches, 5,201 yards and 21 touchdowns in five seasons with the Carolina Panthers without the benefit of much stability at quarterback.

“That speaks volumes for him to adjust to whoever is in the game,” Bears receivers coach Tyke Tolbert said. “He just continues to be a pro and do his job.”

3. Travis Bell, who worked a full-time job while in college, was ‘happy to be exhausted’ after his first NFL practice.

During the pre-draft process, Poles formed a strong connection with Bell, a 6-foot, 310-pound defensive tackle from Kennesaw State. After the Bears drafted him in the seventh round, Poles called Bell “probably one of my favorite human beings,” saying he loved Bell’s passion for football, the intensity with which he plays and his commitment to balancing work, school and practice.

Bell joked he has watched the video of Poles’ draft-night comments “1,000 times.”

“I watch it before I go to sleep just to motivate me,” he said. “That means a lot coming from a GM. A guy like me, that’s a dream come true, to have somebody of that caliber — that type of person, that type of human being — say something like that about you. That means you really made a good first impression.”

Bell worked full time for about three years. On a typical day, he went from morning workouts to his job at a medical supply chain business doing whatever they needed at the warehouse. On his break he attended class, then returned to work. At the end of the day, he went to practice.

“It was hard on my body, hard on my mental,” he said. “But I had to do what I had to do. I don’t regret it. As long as I was able to help my family in turn ... that’s what it’s all about for me.”

When Bell arrived at Halas Hall this week, his eyes still were dried out from crying over the emotions of earning a spot with an NFL team. Having football as his primary job now is “the best feeling in the world.”

“Because all I have to do is focus on what I love to do,” he said. “I can’t trade it for nothing. Every time I was on that field today — and I was exhausted — I was like still happy. I was happy to be exhausted. It’s a blessing to be exhausted.”

4. Running back Roschon Johnson said his playing style will become evident ‘down the road.’

On draft night, Bears scout John Syty called Johnson, a fourth-round pick from Texas, a “hard-nosed” and “physical” runner who “fits this division to a T.” After his first practice Friday, Johnson said his style of play rarely comes through in practices without pads.

“When we get pads on, my playing style will definitely show,” he said. “I hate practicing without pads on. … You can’t run into somebody with no shoulder pads on. You can’t stiff-arm somebody. Basically I’ve just got to run and can’t use my body as a weapon. That’s the worst part about it.”

In the meantime, as Johnson waits for those types of practices, there is a lot to accomplish.

“For one, just learning the offense,” he said. “Graphing everything and just taking it a day at a time. It’s just kind of playing without thinking and trying to work up to that point so I can ultimately play fast when the pads do come on.”

Running backs coach David Walker laughed Saturday when asked if he needed extra patience to see Johnson run with pads on.

“I know what it’s going to look like when pads come on,” Walker said. “I saw it all over Texas’ film.”

5. Matt Eberflus is eager for ‘healthy’ competition between the draftees and returnees.

Some of the Bears’ draft decisions will put pressure on returning veterans. The addition of Johnson, for example, raises the question about how the Bears will divide the workload among running backs Khalil Herbert, Foreman, Johnson, Travis Homer and Trestan Ebner. The arrival of Scott means a deeper wide receivers room and the potential for a player such as Velus Jones Jr. to have to fight for his roster spot. Tyrique Stevenson could push for time at cornerback.

Eberflus’ message to the returning players is the coaches believe in them — but they’ll have to compete.

“When you start to increase your talent on your roster, the competition gets better,” Eberflus said. “And I think it’s a healthy thing, you know? The NFL is all about competition.

“That’s the message Peanut Tillman talked about (Friday). You’ve got to be a fiery competitor to be able to stay in this league and to get in one of these seats. That was a great message by him.”

6. The pecking order in the running backs room is in flux.

Walker said Saturday that Herbert, the team’s leading rusher in 2022, would take the first rep at running back in the first practice of OTAs later this month.

“After that,” Walker added, “all bets are off.”

Herbert averaged 5.7 yards per carry last season, best among NFL running backs with at least 80 attempts, and seemed to be in line to become the team’s top dog after David Montgomery left for the Detroit Lions in free agency.

But Herbert will be challenged by seventh-year veteran Foreman, who signed a one-year, $2 million deal with the Bears in March after an impressive 2022 campaign in which he ran for 877 yards and five touchdowns over the final 11 games for the Panthers. And Foreman will be pushed by Johnson, the focused and driven rookie who is intent on contributing early and often. Homer, another free-agent signee, is also in the mix.

“We’ve got pieces to the puzzle and those guys will sort it all out,” Walker said. “That’s the good thing about this. No one has earned a seat in that room yet. They’re all going to earn their seats from what we do from now until August and whenever that third preseason game is.

“That’s the good thing and they know it. That’s been communicated to them.”

Walker is eager to watch that competition unfold.

“We have a lot of like-minded guys,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of guys who like football and like competing. So when you’re in that room and you’re instructing or when you’re out on the field instructing, you can see it and you feel it. That’s what I love about this group.”

7. Defensive coordinator Alan Williams admires Tremaine Edmunds’ leadership.

Poles gave Williams a couple of key new pieces for his defense when he signed linebackers Edmunds and T.J. Edwards to free-agent contracts.

Williams said he doesn’t want Edmunds to change from the player he was as a two-time Pro Bowl selection in five seasons with the Buffalo Bills.

“We want him to do more of that, and then we like the leadership qualities he has,” Williams said. “I don’t think you can have too many good leaders. When you have good leaders in the building who have a standard, who are accountable from an actions standpoint and verbally — on top of he looks like a million bucks — those are all things that we want him to do.”

Williams reiterated Eberflus’ suggestion in March that Edmunds will play middle linebacker while Edwards will play weak-side linebacker. Both have experience playing in the middle. Williams thinks the arrangement will work well for both.

“Both of them are run-and-hit guys,” Williams said. “Both of them are smart, they’re intelligent, they understand schemes, they understand formations, they understand coverages, they understand run fits and they are instinctive. Flus would say this: The No. 1 skill of a ‘backer is to hit the football. We don’t make it any more complicated than that.”

8. Cornerback Tyrique Stevenson and wide receiver Tyler Scott trained together before the draft.

After the Bears drafted Stevenson in the second round and Scott in the fourth, the rookies connected on the phone. They trained together in Tampa, Fla., during the pre-draft process and were excited to join the Bears together.

“We told each other right then it’s time to get to work,” said Stevenson, a 6-foot, 198-pound cornerback from Miami.

Stevenson matched up against Scott, a wide receiver from Cincinnati, several times during practice Friday. He knew about Scott’s speed — he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.44 seconds at the combine — from their time working out together.

“Definitely did good,” Stevenson said. “I know he’s quick and I know he’s fast. Me being able to get my hands on him a couple of times kind of threw him off. I’m a little bit bigger than him, so he definitely doesn’t want me to touch him. But he definitely did good with his releases off the line. He gave me some work today, and I gave him some work.”

Stevenson should have a chance to compete for playing time at outside cornerback this season alongside Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon. Williams praised his size, speed, intelligence and instincts.

“In a nutshell, we go, ‘Did this guy love football?’” Williams said. “And then, ‘Does he have instincts, does he have quickness, and does he have strike?’ He has all of those. We love the things that he can do in that package in terms of body size, hands, arm length.”