Darnell Wright’s Elbow Scare Opened the Door for a Rookie

Darnell Wright left the Bears’ last fan camp practice flexing the same right elbow he tore last season. Trainers checked him on the sideline during red-zone work, then walked him into Halas Hall as he moved the joint. Three weeks after Chicago locked him up on a record tackle deal, the brace came off in pads.

The same session put sixth-round rookie Jordan van den Berg with the starting defensive line after Gervon Dexter Sr. also walked off. Wright was back the next day. Dexter was a Falcon by Sunday.

Jaylon Johnson Told Them It Wasn’t Good Enough

Cornerback Jaylon Johnson pulled the team together before the red-zone period and said the work was not good enough. Tight end Cole Kmet heard it, and he said the nearly two-hour day flipped. “I thought it ended up being one of our better practices through camp so far,” Kmet said after practice.

Quarterback Caleb Williams mixed the good with the messy. He moved the first offense off its own 1-yard line when he hit Rome Odunze down the middle on third down, then completed one of six throws in a 7-on-7 period, one of them a drop by running back D’Andre Swift. From the defense’s 14, Williams found Odunze for a touchdown and Swift ran in from 14 yards on the next play.

They closed with a long drive to test cardio. Safety Xavier Woods ended the day by intercepting Case Keenum. Grady Jarrett barked “Get up!” at van den Berg and Montez Sweat when both dropped to a knee in that period. Backup Tyson Bagent was back after a hamstring week. Tyrique Stevenson started next to Johnson. Elijah Hicks and rookie linebacker Keyshaun Elliott came off the PUP list and got work.

The huddle cleaned up the tempo. It did not keep the starting right tackle on the field, and it did not keep Dexter in a Bears helmet through the week.

Wright’s $116 Million Elbow

Wright has started 49 games and missed two in his career. He tore the ulnar collateral ligament in that right elbow in 2025, sat out Week 4 against the Raiders, then played most of the year in a brace and made second-team All-Pro. On August 4 the club and Wright agreed to a four-year, $116 million extension with $93 million guaranteed, the most guaranteed money for an offensive lineman.

THE NEW WRIGHT DEAL

• New money: Four years and $116 million, keeping him in Chicago through 2030.
• The guarantee: $93 million, a record for an NFL lineman at the time of the signing.
• The average: $29 million a year at right tackle, highest at the position and behind only Laremy Tunsil’s $30.1 million among all tackles.
• The brace: He still wears one on the right arm after last season’s torn UCL.

Head trainer Andre Tucker had the brace off during a team drill Tuesday and looked at the elbow. Wright flexed the arm as he walked toward the building and did not return. Head coach Ben Johnson, speaking Thursday in Nashville before a joint practice with the Tennessee Titans, called it a scare that did not become a new injury. “It was an aggravation of some things that went on last year,” Johnson said. “He’ll be an active participant today.”

Wright had already been back Wednesday for a light session at Halas Hall, brace on. He then took the harder Titans work. The joint still bothers him at times. He has not gone on the shelf.

Who Stepped In After Wright Walked Off?

Theo Benedet took Wright’s right tackle spot with the starting line, while Braxton Jones stayed at left tackle with the ones on a day Johnson still would not name a starter there. The shuffle also reached the interior, where van den Berg and James Lynch saw first-team defensive line snaps after Dexter left near the end of practice.

TUESDAY’S FIRST-TEAM FILL-INS

Hayden Large left with a left arm issue and Dontae Manning did not return. Kyle Monangai remained week to week. Cam Lewis took most of the safety work next to rookie Dillon Thieneman, a pairing Johnson had already called unsettled. The offensive line was already thin before Wright flexed that arm. Center Drew Dalman retired, Garrett Bradbury is the new center, and Trapilo is still coming back from a patellar tendon tear in the playoffs.

Johnson had called left tackle “a hot spot” before practice and said he was not settled. Jones took most of those snaps anyway. In a 9-on-7 period the staff ran to his side, and three of D’Andre Swift’s four carries there picked up nice gains.

The Rookie Who Made Dexter Tradable

Van den Berg, 24, was born in Johannesburg, moved to the United States at 10, and arrived in the NFL as the 213th pick after Chicago sent both of its seventh-round choices to Buffalo to move up. He is 6-foot-3 and 310 pounds, a Georgia Tech tackle who was first-team All-ACC in 2025, and he never got a combine invite. His one workout was a pro day.

GEORGIA TECH PRO DAY MARKS

• The 40: He ran it in 4.9 seconds at 310 pounds, a time that would have ranked sixth among combine defensive tackles.
• The bench: 35 reps at 225 pounds.
• The jump: A 36-inch vertical and a 9-foot-11 broad jump.
• The score: A 10.00 Relative Athletic Score, second among 2,278 defensive tackles tracked from 1987 through 2026.

Johnson had already put him in the mix before Dexter left the grass. “He’s a beast. He’s an incredible athlete,” Johnson said. “He’s still learning the game of football to a degree, and yet it’s amazing what he brings to the table.”

I play with violence. This is a place where you’re able to play with violence and get praise for it. I really enjoy that aspect of the game.

Jordan van den Berg, Bears defensive tackle

Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen described the climb in plain steps. A player starts with the third group, catches the staff’s eye, earns snaps with the twos, and if that holds, gets some with the ones, because that is how they decide what they have. Van den Berg made that climb in one camp. His grandfather, Francoise van den Berg, was a two-time Mr. Universe finalist in the 1960s and finished runner-up to Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1967. The burst shows up on the field as close speed, not a family trivia card.

Chicago had already signed Neville Gallimore, Kentavius Street, and James Lynch to thicken the interior. Van den Berg was the last piece. When Dexter walked off Tuesday, the rookie did not need a crash course to stand over the ball with the starters.

Why Chicago Traded Gervon Dexter

Chicago sent Dexter to the Atlanta Falcons on August 30 for cornerback Clark Phillips III and a 2027 fifth-round pick, five days after he left that Halas Hall practice. Dexter, 24, was a 2023 second-round pick who started 33 games from 2023 through 2025 and posted 115 tackles, 13.5 sacks, 42 quarterback hits, and 10 tackles for loss. He was in the last year of his rookie deal and wanted an extension the Bears would not give him.

Johnson had listed him with a hamstring on Thursday and said he did not travel to Nashville. Trade talks had already been public the afternoon he walked off, so the trainer’s walk was easy to read as cover. It was also an injury the coach was willing to name. Both things can be true at once. The club still moved him before the 53-man cut.

The return is a contract-year corner and a mid-round pick, not a king’s ransom. That math only works if the people behind Dexter on the depth chart can rush and hold up. Van den Berg’s camp, plus Gallimore, Street, Lynch, and Jarrett, is the bet. The remaining interior group sits in a 6-foot-1 to 6-foot-4 band, shorter and thicker than Dexter’s 6-foot-6 frame. Scheme theories about height spread quickly and do not hold up on their own. What held up in Lake Forest was a rookie who kept winning reps against men who were about to be cut, then against the ones.

A former starter in the last year of a deal is easier to move when the next man has already taken his snaps in public. Tuesday made that visible. Sunday made it official.

Braxton Jones Kept the Left Tackle Snaps

Johnson spent the spring and summer saying left tackle was open. Jones, back on a one-year deal after a 2025 season that ended in a benching and injured reserve, took the first-team work through camp anyway. Trapilo, the 2025 second-round pick who had seized the job before the patellar tear, was activated off the PUP list and limited to individual work, including some pass-pro after the Titans practice. Benedet was the swing, and he spent Tuesday’s emergency snaps on the right side once Wright went in.

THE TACKLE WEEK

1. August 4: Wright signs the $116 million extension, three weeks before the elbow scare.
2. August 25: Wright walks off flexing the right elbow; Benedet takes the right side; Jones stays at left tackle; van den Berg takes Dexter’s starting snaps.
3. August 26: Wright returns for a light practice with the brace on.
4. August 27: Johnson calls the elbow an aggravation and plays Wright against the Titans; Dexter stays in Chicago with a hamstring; Booker is week to week with a groin.
5. August 30: Dexter is traded to Atlanta for Phillips and a 2027 fifth-round pick.

Jones is still the man on Caleb Williams’ blind side until Trapilo is ready for team periods, and Johnson has already shown he will shuffle that spot if the tape tells him to. Wright’s elbow is the one Chicago cannot shuffle. He is the highest-paid right tackle in the league, he plays through a joint that already cost him a ligament, and the brace is part of the uniform again.

Wright took the Titans joint practice in that brace. Van den Berg kept the interior snaps the trade opened. Dexter went to Atlanta on the last weekend before the cut. The huddle Johnson asked for on Tuesday still has to hold up in September, with the right tackle’s elbow taped and a sixth-round rookie in the rotation the club just trusted enough to deal a starter.