Wright’s Elbow Puts the Bears Tackle Room on the Clock

Darnell Wright walked out of the Chicago Bears’ last open camp practice Tuesday flexing the same right elbow he tore last season. Trainers took the brace off that joint during red zone work at Halas Hall, then walked the All-Pro right tackle inside, and he did not return.

Theo Benedet jumped in at right tackle with the starters. Braxton Jones still took every first-team snap at left tackle, a sixth-round rookie worked on the interior, and defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr. left with a trainer on the same afternoon an NFL insider said Chicago has been taking calls on him.

Jaylon Johnson Told Them It Wasn’t Good Enough

Before the red zone period, cornerback Jaylon Johnson pulled the team together and told them the session was not up to standard. Tight end Cole Kmet said afterward that the message landed. “I thought it ended up being one of our better practices through camp so far,” Kmet said.

The nearly two-hour padded day had been a mix until that huddle. Quarterback Caleb Williams, working from his own 1-yard line, hit Rome Odunze down the middle for a long gain on third down, then completed one of six attempts in a 7 on 7 period, one of them a drop by running back D’Andre Swift. Once the red zone started from the 14, Williams found Odunze for a touchdown and Swift ran 14 yards for another on the next snap.

Cairo Santos drilled a 59-yard field goal, per Zack Pearson. The Bears closed with a long drive drill to test cardio, and safety Xavier Woods ended it by intercepting Case Keenum. Johnson, in his second year as head coach after an 11-6 season in 2025, had spent Monday in personnel meetings. Tuesday was the last camp practice in front of fans, with a light Wednesday on the calendar, a joint practice at Tennessee on Thursday, and the preseason finale Saturday.

Wright Walked Off With Last Year’s Torn Elbow

Wright came out of red zone work after two run plays, ESPN’s Courtney Cronin reported, and was replaced by Benedet. Trainers evaluated him on the sideline for about five minutes, took the brace off the right elbow, and walked him into the building. Nicholas Moreano wrote that Wright was flexing and moving the arm on the way in. It is the same elbow that tore in Week 3 last season against Dallas.

That tear was an ulnar collateral ligament injury, the kind that sends pitchers and quarterbacks to Tommy John surgery. Wright missed the Week 4 game at Las Vegas, then played the rest of 2025 in a brace. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune wrote in October that after second and third opinions, the plan was to let the UCL scar over rather than operate. Wright started 16 games, earned second-team All-Pro, and ranked fourth in pass-block win rate at 95.2 percent, per ESPN. He has started all 49 NFL games he has played and has missed two games in three seasons.

1. September 2025: Tears the UCL in his right elbow against Dallas, returns to finish that game, then sits out Week 4 at Las Vegas.
2. October 2025: Plays through the tear in a brace after the club decides to let the ligament scar over, with no surgery planned.
3. April 2026: Chicago picks up his fifth-year option, a fully guaranteed salary projected near $19.07 million for 2027.
4. August 4, 2026: Agrees to a four-year, $116 million extension that includes a record $93 million in guarantees, the most for an offensive lineman, at $29 million a year, behind only Laremy Tunsil among all tackles.
5. August 25, 2026: Leaves the last open camp practice with the brace off that elbow and does not return.

The Bears did not have to pay him yet. The option already kept him through 2027. General manager Ryan Poles paid him anyway, three weeks and six camp practices after the deal, and Wright told the team site he had made his roots in Chicago. “I mean, I’ll be on the Bears for a long time,” he said then. Poles called him a cornerstone. On Tuesday the cornerstone walked inside holding the joint that money was built on.

WHO LEFT TUESDAY

• Darnell Wright: Starting right tackle, apparent right elbow, brace removed, did not return.
• Gervon Dexter Sr.: Starting defensive tackle, left with a trainer, no body part announced.
• Hayden Large: Tight end, left arm, sidelined.
• Dontae Manning: Cornerback, left and did not return.

Kyle Monangai, the running back, remains week to week. New defensive end Marcus Davenport did not practice. Austin Booker, who sat out Saturday in Cincinnati, was out again. No diagnosis on Wright had been posted as of Wednesday morning.

Who Starts at Left Tackle Against Carolina?

Ben Johnson said Tuesday he is not 100 percent sold on the left tackle for the season opener at Carolina, 19 days out. Braxton Jones took every first-team snap in the two-hour padded practice, Ozzy Trapilo stayed in individual drills after a playoff patellar tendon tear, and Benedet had to slide to the right once Wright left. Johnson called Thursday and Saturday huge days for a fight that has been open since the first practice on July 29.

It’s a hot spot for us. Obviously, we talk about it almost every time I’m up here, and yet I don’t know that we are 100% sold on who that guy is going to be for Carolina yet. We’re going to still work through it. That’s where today’s going to be huge for us. Thursday is going to be huge for us, and Saturday is going to be huge for us as well.

Ben Johnson, Bears head coach, Halas Hall

Jones, a 2022 fifth-round pick, has started 44 games at left tackle. He opened 2025 as the starter, was benched before halftime in Week 4 at Las Vegas, then spent 11 weeks on injured reserve with a knee injury. Benedet started eight games in his place before 2025 second-rounder Trapilo took over and then ruptured a patellar tendon in the wild-card win over Green Bay. Trapilo came off the PUP list far sooner than Poles had projected, but Johnson has him on his own timeline. He has been in individual work since Aug. 16. He was in pads Tuesday. He still was not in team drills.

Jedrick Wills Jr. backed up Jones on the left. Kiran Amegadjie and Wills had already been moved to right tackle with the backup lines. Brad Biggs wrote that, from his angle, Jones did a nice job in a 9 on 7 period and that three of the four Swift runs went to that side for nice gains. That is one padded day. Johnson still would not name a starter.

If Wright is limited this week, Chicago’s tackle depth is Benedet, a third-year swing, plus Wills and Amegadjie, on a line that already spent camp trying to replace Trapilo. Johnson has said the next three workdays have to tell him something he does not know yet.

The Sixth-Round Rookie Is Already With the Ones

With Dexter out and Booker out, the interior shuffled in public. Jordan van den Berg, the Georgia Tech sixth-round draft signing, worked some with the starters. Jamree Kromah took snaps with the ones on the edge. James Lynch also spent time with the first group. Grady Jarrett, the veteran next to that rotation, yelled “Get up!” at van den Berg and Montez Sweat when both were on a knee during the long drive drill, per CHGO’s Adam Hoge.

Van den Berg is 6-foot-3 and 310 pounds, born in Johannesburg, and he took the long way in. Iowa Western, then Penn State, then Georgia Tech, where he started all 13 games in 2025, led the team with 11 tackles for loss, and made first-team All-ACC. The Bears traded two seventh-round picks to Buffalo to take him 213th overall. Poles said after the draft that the kid has had a chip on his shoulder everywhere he has been. Johnson, on Tuesday, did not sound like a coach describing a camp body.

“He’s a beast,” Johnson said. “He’s an incredible athlete. He has been the same guy every single day. It’s a good thing to see right now. He’s firmly in the mix.” Johnson also said he thinks the interior is better than the outside world is giving it credit for. In the Cincinnati preseason game, van den Berg posted a 90.9 PFF grade, per On SI, with an 84.9 in run defense. That is two preseason games and one padded Tuesday with the starters. It is also the clip the staff is holding up while Dexter’s name sits in trade talks.

Gervon Dexter Drew Trade Calls Tuesday Afternoon

Jordan Schultz reported during that same practice that Chicago has had trade talks on Gervon Dexter, and that there are multiple scenarios in which a deal could send the 24-year-old to a new team. Dexter, a 2023 second-round pick out of Florida, started all 17 games last season, has 13.5 career sacks and 42 quarterback hits, and is in the last year of his rookie contract. He left Tuesday with a trainer. The two facts landed in the same hour. They are not the same fact.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The talks: Schultz, citing sources, said discussions are real and that more than one path could move Dexter before roster cuts.
• The tape split: He posted a career-high six sacks and six tackles for loss in 2025, but Pro Football Focus ranked him 72nd among interior linemen after a weak run grade, and only five teams allowed more rushing yards than Chicago.
• The money: Trading him would free about $1.67 million in cap space against $472,000 in dead money, per Pro Football Rumors, on a roster that ranked 29th in available cap at $4.6 million.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A done deal: No team has been named, and no compensation has been reported.
• The walk-off: Leaving with a trainer is usually an injury, not a trade signal, and Chicago has not said what was wrong.

The cap number is too small to be the point. Chicago added Neville Gallimore on a two-year, $10 million deal and Kentavius Street on a one-year, $1.48 million deal, then used a sixth-round pick and two sevenths on van den Berg. Dexter called it one of the better tackle groups he has been in. Shopping a 24-year-old who played every game last year only tracks if the staff has already decided that room can live without him. The objection writes itself: this defense needed the interior last year, and moving a starter in August is a hard sell unless the rookie and the winter signings have already won the building.

Stevenson Started Again Opposite Jaylon Johnson

The other side of Tuesday was bodies coming back. Tyrique Stevenson returned to team drills and started with Johnson. Backup corners Terell Smith and Jaylon Jones were on the field, though neither did team work. Tyson Bagent returned after a hamstring kept him out last week. Safety Elijah Hicks (shin) and rookie linebacker Keyshaun Elliott (back) were activated from the PUP list and got in work. Left tackle Trapilo was dressed, still limited.

The safety next to rookie Dillon Thieneman is the other job Johnson has refused to close. Cam Lewis took most of the work there Tuesday. Ben Johnson said in the morning that the spot is still an uncertainty. Hicks’s activation adds another veteran to that pile just as the corners, the group Johnson stopped practice over, finally got healthy reps in the same session the offensive line lost its highest-paid player.

Thursday in Tennessee Becomes a Line Tryout

Johnson named the three days that have to settle left tackle: Tuesday, which is over, Thursday’s joint practice with the Titans, and Saturday’s preseason finale in Nashville, listed for 6 p.m. ET on NFL Network. Wright’s elbow now sits on that same clock. Benedet can play either side. Jones can start Week 1 at Carolina if the staff swallows the tape from Cincinnati, where he was flagged for holding and got moved on a pass rush, per On SI. Trapilo can keep ramping on his own timeline, or he can be a PUP math problem against the 53. The interior can keep Dexter, or it can keep taking calls and let van den Berg grow next to Jarrett.

No injury report had clarified Wright or Dexter by Wednesday morning. The light workout was the last quiet day on the schedule. Safety Xavier Woods picked off Keenum to close the last fan practice, and Jarrett barked at two linemen to get off a knee. The next live work is against another NFL roster.