The One Thing Jordan van den Berg Must Prove at Chicago Bears Training Camp

Chicago Bears sixth-round pick Jordan van den Berg has a clear point of emphasis going into training camp.

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defensive lineman Jordan van den Berg. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Chicago Bears defensive lineman Jordan van den Berg has an uphill climb as he prepares for his first season in the NFL.

A sixth-round pick of the Bears, van den Berg is anything but a lock to make the team's 53-man roster, although he has a better chance than most players taken in his draft slot because of the concerns Chicago has upfront.

In 2025, the Bears sported the sixth-worst run defense in the NFL and lacked pass-rush punch up the middle, with Gervon Dexter being the only interior lineman to tally more than 1.5 sacks.

The Bears didn't make any big additions to the interior during the offseason, with Neville Gallimore, who has had his own struggles against the run, serving as the team's most significant move upfront.

Ahead of training camp, van den Berg "has to show he can shape his raw athleticism into production" if he wants to make the cut, the Chicago Tribune's Phil Thompson wrote.

A point of emphasis for van den Berg

One issue van den Berg has had this offseason is his get-off when the ball is snapped.

"During minicamp drills, he was slow off the hop when the ball was snapped, but he eventually settled in and showed some burst," Thompson said of van den Berg.

Thompson wasn't the only one to come away with that critique of van den Berg, who also had an issue jumping offsides when attempting to anticipate the snap.

"Jordan [van den Berg] is struggling with his get-off. It's a little bit slow," Herb Howard of The Bigs stated in his review of the rookie at minicamp. "Then a couple times during individual period, he tried to anticipate it, resulting in him jumping offsides."

When van den Berg was able to get it right, his explosiveness shined. That said, there is still a lot of work to be done.

"Once [van den Berg] gets out of it, you can see the burst and explosion from his athleticism, but getting out on that first step, which is what they've been working on, he still has a bit of a ways to go on that," Howard added.

We know the Georgia Tech product is uber-athletic. That is proven by his off-the-charts Relative Athletic Score, which came in at an astounding 10 out of 10 during the pre-draft process.

That score ranks second out of 2,278 defensive tackles who were charted from 1987 through 2026.

But in order to capitalize on that athleticism in the NFL, van den Berg has to improve his get-off. He also has to prove he won't be a liability with penalties or he'll further stack the deck against his chances of making the roster out of training camp.