The Chicago Bears ramped up the intensity at Tuesday’s practice, and while the session wasn’t the intense goal-line period that turned heads during last year’s camp, the Bears are getting close to it after practicing in full pads this week with expanded 11-on-11 work between the offense and defense.

Tuesday’s session featured a strong emphasis on the 13 personnel packages the offense is looking to install more of this upcoming season. Speaking with reporters on Monday, head coach Ben Johnson shared why he plans to lean more into this package and how it’s going to benefit his offense.

“To me, it starts more with what defense you want to attack,” Johnson explained on Monday. “When I first got into the NFL 15 years ago, you would run 12 personnel [two TEs and 2 WRs] and most teams would give you base defense. Now, more teams than ever are playing nickel or a version of their big nickel to that. In order, if you want to attack base defense, the heavier packages may or may not generate that… It just gives you flexibility.”

Chicago Bears have been building a flexible offense with this emphasis in mind

Last season, the Bears already leaned into the 13 personnel trend – not nearly at the rate that Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams did – but Johnson’s unit still ranked fourth in dropbacks and seventh in rushing attempts out of 13 personnel.

To lean more into it, the Bears added a new third tight end to the offense in third-round pick Sam Roush to pair with Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet. At the same time, Chicago’s wide receiver room is looking more lethal than ever with five talented players in Luther Burden III, Rome Odunze, Kalif Raymond, Zavion Thomas, and Jahdae Walker.

That gives Johnson plenty of flexibility he needs to roll out various different looks with different combinations of talent he puts on the field on any given play.

“We look at that every week,” Johnson added. “Some weeks we can go exclusive 11 personnel – which is all three of our wideouts out there – other weeks we might lean into a heavier package. We want to be able to weave through which ever way we want to go each week.”

The downside to this, as the Bears experienced on Tuesday, is that it adds a lot onto the plate of the players when it comes to mastering the finer aspects of this scheme.

“We got a variety of things we do offensively,” running back D’Andre Swift explained. “Pass game wise, run game wise, trying to make everything look similar. It’s a lot of different details in the offense we need to be on top of as players.”

Bears’ offense had early growing pains working with the 13 personnel offense on Tuesday

As previously mentioned, Tuesday’s practice skewed heavily toward 13 personnel. In the run game, the Bears had a strong day. Swift had a standout rep, bouncing one run to the left outside for a big gain. Roschon Johnson had an encouraging day himself, receiving reps with both the first and second-team offenses while Kyle Monangai, who missed time last week before coming back on Monday, continued to be limited.

In the passing game quarterback Caleb Williams started practice with a couple of sharp completions early in the team sessions to Burden and Loveland, but the day went sideways from there. Miscommunication plagued the entire offense across the board, leading to some interceptions, incompletions, and penalties as practice continued.

The two-minute drill at the end of practice swung things further in the defense’s favor, with Dennis Allen’s unit getting the upper hand and keeping the offense out of the endzone during the final competitive period.

Growing pains are to be expected early in training camp

Something was clearly off with the offense operating out of 13 personnel during Tuesday’s live periods, but that’s to be expected this early in the install process. Johnson is integrating new plays and concepts that require precise communication and detail.

This isn’t something Chicago plans to shy away from. The Bears view these heavy packages as a core piece of what they want to accomplish offensively this season, using the versatility of their tight end room to create favorable run-game situations and open up play-action opportunities against lighter defensive boxes.

“I think he does a good job of trying to create the formations and the angles and the blocking schemes to try to gain an advantage on the defense,” Dennis Allen said of Johnson ahead of Tuesday’s practice. “I think they do a good job of mixing in zone schemes with gap schemes and then their ability to give you the same look and then have play-action pass off it. I think he does a good job.”

Tuesday was simply the first taste of what to expect as Johnson continues building this offense throughout training camp. The run game already showed some flashes out of these formations, which was an encouraging sign.

We’ll keep an eye out for how these packages look as camp progresses to get an idea of how this can become a real weapon for the unit once the regular season arrives.