Chicago Bears training camp report: Rookie offensive lineman Darnell Wright aces his fitness test — with a twist

The Chicago Bears held their third practice of training camp and the second open to fans Friday morning at Halas Hall with the 100-minute session being mostly assignment-driven and slower tempo.

That was intentional as they don’t want to push players too hard this early in camp. The scaled-back tempo helps players mentally grasp the schemes as well.

The Bears will practice Saturday morning before taking Sunday off and returning to work Monday, two days before the first workout in full pads. Here’s our camp rundown.

News of the day

Jaylon Johnson sat down in front of reporters and fired first.

“Contracts?” the cornerback said. “What are we doing? Let’s get into it. I know we’re going to talk about it.”

The 2020 second-round pick is entering the final year of his rookie contract, and two days after the team completed a $50 million, four-year extension with tight end Cole Kmet, it’s natural to wonder if a pay day could be in the works for Johnson.

The cornerback recently changed agents, hiring Chris Ellison, and it will be interesting to see what position general manager Ryan Poles takes. The Bears have used second-round picks in consecutive drafts on cornerbacks — Kyler Gordon and Tyrique Stevenson — and drafted Terell Smith in the fifth round this year. Poles has spoken fondly of Johnson. The great unknown is whether the sides will be able discover common ground.

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Justin Fields watch

Without a lot of full-speed action, there wasn’t an abundance of plays to sift through and overanalyze. Fields threaded a nice pass to DJ Moore on an intermediate dig route in tight coverage against Johnson in one-on-one drills. His best throw, also in one-on-ones, might have been a corner route to tight end Robert Tonyan against safety Elijah Hicks. The majority of throws in 7-on-7 action were checkdowns, so much so that it could have been by design.

The Bears believe Fields is improved when it comes to rhythm and timing, two elements that begin with footwork. That all gets tested at another level when the team shifts to padded practices next week. You don’t think of practices with pads affecting quarterbacks in the same manner it does linemen, but there’s a change for everyone.

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“There’s that element that the pocket has to move and change a lot more when there’s a real rush,” offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said Thursday. “That’s playing this position at the highest level when you’re able to manipulate the pocket, not necessarily always scramble but manipulate for an angle of the throw or anything like that. So that’s what I’m more talking about.”

The Bears won’t have any truly live pass rushes in pads, but there will be traffic for Fields to work around on occasion, which will test some of the elements he has been working on.

Player in the spotlight

First-round draft pick Darnell Wright revealed the secret to crushing the conditioning test when the right tackle reported last weekend. Wright, whom the team lists at 6-foot-6, 335 pounds, was mistakably training over the summer for the test given to wide receivers — not offensive linemen. The Bears evaluate position groups differently with the benchmarks they are asked to meet to prove their fitness and Wright, well, he was fixing to run with players significantly smaller and a lot faster.

It paid off as GM Ryan Poles noted that Wright crushed the test upon his arrival. Wright said he hired a personal chef with a meal plan in the offseason and dropped 16 pounds, getting down to 328 from where he was in the spring when joining the club for rookie minicamp.

“I thought we had like more,” Wright said of the test for linemen. “I was looking at the wide receivers’ running portion of the workout, so I was doing theirs. Obviously we have different stuff.”

Wright, the No. 10 pick in the draft out of Tennessee, will be one of the players to watch when pads go on. Young linemen are prone to making mistakes, but as long as Wright can learn from his as he grows, he could ascend rapidly.

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Quote of the day

After Stevenson spent most of the first two practices running with the starting unit, fellow rookie Smith rotated in with the ones Friday. It wasn’t a reflection on Stevenson’s early work in camp.

“Don’t read anything into who goes in first, second or third,” defensive coordinator Alan Williams said. “It’s a rep plan, not a game plan. The lineups will change daily. They’ll change by period. So I wouldn’t read anything into that. That’s just maybe yesterday he went with the thirds, today he went with the seconds, tomorrow maybe he’ll go with the firsts. So nothing about that in terms of when they’re in there and who they’re working with.”

Seen and heard

One of the smoothest plays of the day came in the one-on-one period when Gordon matched wide receiver Nsimba Webster in the slot and carried his coverage over the middle before diving to break up a pass. It was a great effort by Gordon from start to finish and notable from the standpoint the team is asking the 2022 second-round pick to keep his focus on playing the nickel position this summer.

Gordon played inside and on the outside a year ago and has a little less on his plate now.

“I do believe that just with everything, less is more,” Williams said. “So when you reduce the amount of things that he has to do in terms of technique assignments, they can’t help but get better. He works at it unbelievably. He is smart. He is instinctive. I don’t know if you remember last year, but he didn’t get into that spot (nickel) until this time last year. We didn’t rep him there in OTAs. So he’s got all those reps banked from the season underneath his belt on top of a little bit less on his plate in terms of being outside, so I would say yes, it has helped him on top of one more year in the system.

“But if you’re just talking about Kyler from what his skill set is, gosh, man, the guy’s have nicknamed him Spider-Man because he is so quick. He’s so agile. He is instinctive. He’s got spidey senses. When he makes a play and you go, ‘Wow, how did he make that?’ Ding, ding, ding, the spidey senses are going off. The quickness, the instincts, they’ve been showing up in a big way. Usually that happens Year 2. I’ve seen guys come in and Year 1, they’re getting their feet up underneath them. Year 2, they feel more comfortable, they know how to get lined up. They’re not just going through memorization. Now they’re starting to play football. That’s what you’re seeing out there.”

Injury watch

Linebacker Dylan Cole, who left Thursday’s practice about midway through with a member of the athletic training staff, was not spotted and the team has not provided an update. Wide receiver Dante Pettis remains on the non-football injury list.

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Bears fans cheer for autographs after practice on July 27, 2023, during training camp at Halas Hall. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)