Bear Digest

Ben Johnson labels Bears starting strongside linebacker open battle

Noah Sewell's time might finally have come as the third-year player was prominently mentioned by Ben Johnson in assessing the starter at strongside linebacker, but there is competition.

Gene Chamberlain

Bears linebacker Noah Sewell with New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Bryan Bresee after a 2023 game in New Orleans.
Bears linebacker Noah Sewell with New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Bryan Bresee after a 2023 game in New Orleans. / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
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Because Bears coaches have said they anticipate left tackle will be played by Braxton Jones when he’s healthy at some point, there appears to be only one starting spot up for grabs and it's not on offense.

It’s strongside linebacker, which really is more of a niche position than a starting position now because of the team's heavy use of two linebackers most of the time.

Jack Sanborn held the Sam linebacker position and went to Dallas when the Bears didn't tender him as a restricted free agent. He's back together with Matt Eberflus again.

The Bears have several potential candidates but none with experience playing extensively on defense.

“We'll find out,” coach Ben Johnson said. “We certainly have an open competition. We feel really good obviously about (weakside) T.J. (Edwards) and (middle) Tremaine (Edmunds) and what they've done over the course, not just of last year, but the last few years in this league. Really comfortable there.

“That third spot, it's up for grabs and we do have a prototype. DA’s (defensive coordinator Dennis Allen) got a prototype for what that SAM would look like. We're more concerned with, let's find our third-best linebacker and we'll figure it out from there. We’ve got a lot of scenarios going on in our heads right now of what that could be. But we won't know for sure until we get the pads on.”

Noah Sewell has been around two years but has been on the field with the defense for only 32 plays.

Amen Ogbongbemiga has been in the league four years but has just 144 plays, and 129 of them came with the Chargers before last year.

They also have 6-foot-2, 230-pound first-year player Carl Jones from UCLA.

Then, there is fleet-footed rookie Ruben Hyppolite II, who ran a 4.39-second 40 at a pro day.

“Obviously Noah Sewell's been in the building, and he's shown a lot of good things over the last few weeks,” Johnson said. “We've got a good mix of other guys in that room as well.”

It’s probably safe to consider Sewell, who is the brother of Lions All-Pro tackle Penei, the favorite at this point.  He’s also the brother of Nephi Sewell, a linebacker the Bears defensive coordinator coaches from 2022-24 with the Saints.

Regardless, the Bears only had Sanborn on the field 22% of snaps last year as they tried to avoid the base package to keep Kyler Gordon and the nickel cornerback position in play. That was down from 38% and 39% the previous two years.

Allen likes using as many defensive backs as possible just like Eberflus did, just in different coverages and deployed differently.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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