There was a huge buzz surrounding last year’s Chicago Bears training camp with head coach Ben Johnson running the show for the first time, but this year, the Bears are coming off a division title and a playoff win, and expectations are even higher.
Bears’ rookies are scheduled to report to Halas Hall for camp on Saturday, July 25, with the veterans all due three days later on July 28.
Chicago’s preseason kicks off on Saturday, August 15, as they host the Cleveland Browns. They are on the road for the other two preseason games against the Cincinnati Bengals (8/22) and the Tennessee Titans (8/29), and they have joint practices with each team.
Teams must be down to 53 players by 5:00 p.m. CT on Saturday, August 30. The next day at Noon CT, the claiming period for players placed on waivers expires, at which point clubs can establish their practice squads.
In this story stream, we’ll collect all of Bill Zimmerman’s individual player vs. player training camp battle spotlight articles, his training camp preview podcasts, and Lester A. Wiltfong Jr.’s position by position preview articles.
Bill Zimmerman
Training Camp Battle: CB2: Tyrique Stevenson vs Malik Muhammad
NFC Divisional Playoffs: Los Angeles Rams v Chicago Bears
NFC Divisional Playoffs: Los Angeles Rams v Chicago Bears
We have a few more training camp battles to discuss before the Bears all report to training camp later this month. We move back to the defensive side of the ball one more time, and this time we focus on the secondary once again.
This is one of the most critical training camp battles of the season. There may be some that are interesting or intriguing, but in most cases, the Bears have two players capable of starting battling it out. In this case? Do the Bears have a legitimate starter to play opposite Jaylon Johnson? Right now, that’s impossible to answer.
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Bill Zimmerman
Training Camp Battle: LS: Luke Elkin vs Beau Gardner
Georgia v Tennessee
Georgia v Tennessee
We’ve looked at two offensive and two defensive training camp battles, so let’s take a minute and look at one on special teams. This one may not interest every Bears fan, but it’ll definitely interest some because the Bears could have an interesting battle at long snapper during training camp.
The Bears have had a little inconsistency at long snapper over the last few years. Not so much on performance, but just on stability. The Bears have gone from Patrick Scales to Scott Daly and now to either Luke Elkin or Beau Gardner in just a couple of seasons. But the Bears have two young long snappers, and one of these two could establish themselves for the Bears and solidify the position for the next several years.
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Bill Zimmerman
Training Camp Battle: C: Garrett Bradbury vs Logan Jones
SPORTS-FBN-BEARS-JONES-URLACHER-TB
SPORTS-FBN-BEARS-JONES-URLACHER-TB
Offensive lineman Logan Jones stretches during Chicago Bears rookie minicamp at Halas Hall on Friday, May 8, 2026, in Lake Forest. (Josh Boland/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
We move back to the offensive side of the ball with our next training camp battle in our series, and this time, we are focused on the offensive line.
If I told you 12 months ago that center was going to be a key training camp battle heading into the 2026 season, you would have thought something must have gone terribly wrong in 2025. The Bears had struggled for years to get the center position right, so they finally decided to fix the problem by going out and getting the best free agent center available, Drew Dalman.
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Bill Zimmerman
Training Camp Battle: SAF2: Cam Lewis vs Dillon Thieneman
Chicago Bears OTA Offseason Workouts
Chicago Bears OTA Offseason Workouts
Our next training camp battle may not be a battle at all, but any time a rookie is expected to start, there’s always an opportunity that a veteran starts in September and the rookie doesn’t start until later in the season.
When we approached the 2026 NFL Draft, everyone was pretty confident the Bears would be selecting a defensive player in the first round of the draft. Most were expecting the pick to be defensive line because there was an obvious need there. But there was another obvious need at safety, where the Bears let Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker walk after last season and really only replaced one with Coby Bryant. The other safety the Bears brought in was Cam Lewis, but that felt more like a replacement for Jonathan Owens.
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Bill Zimmerman
Training Camp Battle: RB3: Roschon Johnson vs Brittain Brown
Chicago Bears Mandatory Minicamp
Chicago Bears Mandatory Minicamp
As we move forward with our training camp battle series, we move to the offensive side of the ball, where we have an interesting development at running back.
We know what the top of the Bears running back room is going to look like. D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai are going to be splitting the carries. As long as the two of them remain healthy, there will be very little room for any other running backs to get any carries on this offense.
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Bill Zimmerman
Training Camp Battle: LB2: D’Marco Jackson vs TJ Edwards
NFC Wild Card Playoffs: Green Bay Packers v Chicago Bears
NFC Wild Card Playoffs: Green Bay Packers v Chicago Bears
It’s time to kick off our next yearly off-season series, where we look at interesting training camp battles that could develop throughout July and August. As always, we will unveil these throughout July as we inch closer to the players reporting to training camp. Let’s kick it off on the defensive side of the ball at linebacker, with TJ Edwards and D’Marco Jackson.
The Bears have done quite a heavy facelift to their linebacker room over the last couple of years. They have added quite a few new faces to the room, and at the top of the list is linebacker Devin Bush, whom the Bears signed as their top linebacker this offseason. Bush was a first-round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers and had a solid rookie campaign before injuries derailed his career. He started rebounding the back half of the 2024 season in Cleveland and turned in a strong 2025 season. The Bears hope Bush can build on that and start fulfilling the promise he had as a rookie in Pittsburgh. For Bush to do that, he’s going to need a good running mate next to him.
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