Bears Suffer DEVASTATING Blow as Promising New Starting O-Lineman Goes Down With SHOCKING Injury at Training Camp

The Chicago Bears may have a problem brewing for their newly reconstructed offensive line as they work through their second week of 2025 training camp.

According to CHGO’s Adam Hoge, the Bears did not have veteran right guard Jonah Jackson — a presumptive starter — on the field Thursday for a second straight practice. He is still “day-to-day” with a new leg injury that he sustained earlier in the week.

The Bears are still more than five weeks away from the start of the 2025 regular season and do not need to start panicking about Jackson’s availability for Week 1 just yet, but it does hurt the team not to have their new 28-year-old right guard practicing at camp.

The Bears took a confident gamble on Jackson when they traded a 2025 sixth-rounder to the Los Angeles Rams for him and signed him to a contract extension that ties him to the team through the 2027 season. The trade came with some risk, however, as Jackson played just four games for the Rams in 2024, missing significant time with a shoulder injury early in the year before returning and getting benched from the starting lineup.

For now, the Bears will have to hope that Jackson does not miss too much time at camp.

Jonah Jackson Has Pro Bowl Potential When Healthy

The trade for Jackson has the potential to backfire on the Bears. Not only did he have a down season with the Rams in 2024 in terms of both availability and performance, but the Bears have also committed a sizeable chunk of future money to him with Jackson due to count $17 million against the salary cap for both the 2026 and 2027 seasons.

That’s far more money than the Nate Davis experiment cost them in the last two years.

Jackson has also missed time beyond his 2024 season. After starting 32 of a possible 33 games over his first two seasons for the Detroit Lions, he missed four games in 2022 and five games in 2023 with injuries. He also tore his meniscus in the Lions’ divisional-round game of the 2023 playoffs, forcing him to miss their NFC Championship Game.

Jackson has been a much more reliable player than Davis when healthy enough to play, though. According to Pro Football Focus, he allowed just two sacks and 24 pressures on 798 offensive snaps over his 12 starts for the Lions in 2023, earning the 34th-highest overall offensive grade (61.0) out of 83 qualifying offensive tackles during the season.

None of Jackson’s on-field ability will matter much if his injury keeps him sidelined, but this feels like one of those situations where it might be better for fans to just trust new head coach Ben Johnson, who worked with Jackson during his best seasons in Detroit.

Could Bears Start Ryan Bates in Place of Jonah Jackson?

The doomsaying with Jackson’s injury is still unwarranted at this point. The Bears have not indicated that he will miss significant time with his leg injury, which means that he could technically return to practice by the end of the weekend with all worries dispelled.

In the meantime, though, the Bears will have additional time to evaluate veteran Ryan Bates as their potential fallback starter at all three interior offensive line roles in 2025.

Like with Jackson, the Bears traded a Day 3 draft pick (2024 fifth-rounder) for Bates during the 2024 offseason in hopes that he would provide a stabilizing presence for their offensive line. Instead, a shoulder injury kept him off the field for the majority of his first year with the Bears, impacting Bates badly enough that he mulled retirement.

A year later, the Bears have moved in a new direction at guard and pushed Bates to the bench behind Jackson and All-Pro left guard Joe Thuney, but they may need to circle back to him and give him a real look as a potential starter if Jackson misses more time.

After all, Bates never got much of a chance to show the Bears what he can do. Maybe if the worst comes to pass with Jackson, Bates can turn things around in Chicago.