Bear Digest

Bears O-line coach calls one player's preseason performance 'not acceptable'

The Chicago Bears' offensive line struggled throughout their first preseason game, especially at one position.
Pete Martuneac|
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Several members of the Chicago Bears had a banner day on Sunday against the Miami Dolphins, improving their stock after Chicago's preseason tie with Miami. Most notably, Austin Booker and Noah Sewell combined to lead Chicago's defense to rule the day. Other players did not fare quite so well, including one fourth-year veteran, left tackle Braxton Jones.

Jones is locked in a position battle for the starting left tackle spot with rookie Ozzy Trapilo and second-year player Kiran Amegadjie. As the incumbent starter he had the upper hand at the start of training camp. Now, his grip on the Bears' starting left tackle job may have slackened after a terrible performance on Sunday, which included one particularly bad rep.

Luckily, quarterback Tyson Bagent threw a gorgeous touchdown pass on this play, but Jones getting beaten so quickly could have been disastrous. This was a 4th down play. Giving up a sack on 4th-and-goal in a close game is a good way to ensure a loss, and that's exactly what would have happened if Bagent had not thrown Maurice Alexander a toe-tapping touchdown in the back of the end zone.

Now, Chicago's offensive line coach, Dan Roushar, has weighed in on Jones' performance, and he gave a blunt answer, calling it 'not acceptable'. You can hear his full remarks below.

The honesty on display from Roushar is refreshing and serves two purposes. One, all the fans and analysts watched Jones play poorly on Sunday, so hearing his coach try to hem and haw his way around the truth would be seen as misleading. There was no sugarcoating the truth, and so Roushar answered honestly.

Second, if you can trust a coach to be honest about the bad things, then you can trust that he's being honest when he sings his players' praises. For years, Bears fans have heard about this or that player having a great practice only to never see it on gameday. Clearly, someone was exaggerating or covering. But if Roushar is willing to call out a player's day as not acceptable, then you can trust that when he highlights a good day, such as Jones' performance in the joint practice, that he's giving his honest assessment.

It's not all bad news for Jones, as Roushar makes clear. He first built Jones up by saying that he looked really good in last Friday's joint practice, saying that Jones looked like a guy 'that we can win with'. So the potential to be a good starting left tackle is still there. Jones just needs to make sure it shows up consistently on game day.

Braxton Jone
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Pete Martuneac
PETE MARTUNEAC

A former Marine and Purdue Boilermaker, Pete has been covering the Chicago Bears since 2022 as a senior contributor on BearsTalk. He lives with his wife, two kids and loyal dog.

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