‘He had me ready to play’ — Former Pro Bowl OL eases concerns about Ben Johnson’s intense practices that show no sign of slowing down
The Chicago Bears have had an intense 10 days of training camp under Ben Johnson’s watch and concerns are growing with injuries piling up. Terron Armstead eased all of those worries with his assessment from his time watching camp.
The Chicago Bears are 10 days into training camp and, as expected, it’s been a grueling and intense last few days under head coach Ben Johnson. It’s the same situation the team experienced last year to prepare for the start of the regular season.
“Super physical,” defensive end Austin Booker said when asked how camp has been. “I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing every day. That’s what we’re getting used to. That’s how we’re going to play this year, so we’ve got to make it look like that in practice.”
The downside to having such intense, and physical, practices is injuries, which are starting to pile up on both sides of the ball going into the first week of the preseason. As concerning as injuries can be, there’s no better time than now to work though those situations and assess the quality of depth on the roster.
If you needed your concerns to be eased even more about how Ben Johnson is running his practices, just listen to what former Pro Bowl offensive tackle Terron Armstead had to say after stopping by in Chicago.
Terron Armstead praises Ben Johnson’s practice mentality at training camp
“There’s reason for optimism in Chicago. They’re building something special here,” Armstead said on his podcast ‘The Set’ on Friday. “It’s through work and it’s through process. This is my first time meeting Ben Johnson, was a fan of his work from afar. But, being around him for the last three days, he is your guy. He’s my guy. The man motivated me and had me ready to play and practice.”
Armstead is, of course, happily retired and has been since hanging up his cleats in 2024. So, don’t get your hopes up about the five-time Pro Bowl selection jumping into the left tackle competition or anything like that. But, Armstead has still been a valuable resource for the Bears from afar and clearly appreciates what he’s seeing from Johnson.
“I can’t say enough about Ben Johnson,” Armstead added. “His approach, his directness, his demeanor, his belief in his guys. He challenges them. He’s not afraid to call out when it’s not good enough, or this needs to be better. He has a belief and a confidence in his players and he challenges them to do things that they maybe never tried before. I love it. I love everything that I gathered from Ben Johnson over the last three days.”
As for the injuries piling up, take a look around the league. Armstead noted that all teams deal with injuries this time of year and it shouldn’t deter coaches from having intense sessions. This is when callouses are supposed to be built and depth is to be tested.
Practice intensity isn’t going to slow down anytime soon
The Bears are taking things lightly on Monday to kick off the first “game week” of the preseason schedule by holding a walk-thru practice at Stevenson High School, but the intensity is ramping back up Tuesday with a physical scrimmage on the schedule.
“We’re combining a little bit of the scrimmage along with the short-yardage goal-line,” Johnson explained on Hoge and Jahns. “We’re going to hit short-yardage goal-line early on in that scrimmage. It’ll be the first thing out of the gate. Hopefully that intensity and physicality will carry over for the rest of practice.”
If you remember from last year’s camp, the short-yardage goal line day was the team’s more intense and most physical session of the entire year. The players appreciated it too and the tone it set for season ahead.
“The buy-in was incredible,” general manager Ryan Poles said. “I go back to training camp. He needed a physical day in the dog days of camp, and that was a really cool opportunity to see those guys buy into what he was saying, do something really hard. In the moment, does it feel good? No. But they believed, from his message, that it would help us down the road. And they went all out with it. And you saw that go through the entire season.”
That day is coming up this week. And the hope is that the Bears’ injury situation will slow down here soon because the intensity sure isn’t.
