The Bears drafted Ozzy Trapilo out of Boston College last month thinking he could be their left tackle of the future. And he started working toward it years before he arrived at Halas Hall and hit the field for rookie minicamp this week.
As the team tries to figure out where everyone fits in a revamped offensive line, Trapilo is prepared for just about anything. He’ll be ready, whether the Bears believe he can supplant Braxton Jones as the starting left tackle this offseason or if they think the best idea is to move right tackle Darnell Wright to the left side and play Trapilo at right.
“I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to play in the NFL, and I’ve had great coaches that told me I had to be versatile, so throughout my career I’ve tried to make sure that both sides are sharp,” Trapilo told the Sun-Times on Friday. “Playing right tackle in college the last two years, obviously I’ve practiced more there as far as live reps, but after practice I got extra work in at left, just in case.”
The two problems that derailed the Bears the most in 2024 — and topped general manager Ryan Poles’ offseason to-do list — were coaching and the O-line. Poles addressed the coaching issue by hiring the league’s most coveted candidate, Ben John-son. He reconfigured the line by trad-ing for guards Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson, picking up free-agent center Drew Dalman and taking Trapilo in the second round at No. 56 overall. Wright is the only guaranteed holdover from a unit that allowed quarterback Caleb Wil-liams to be sacked an NFL-high 68 times and contributed to the Bears’ running game falling in the bottom third of the league.
Johnson was Poles’ partner in the o-line overhaul, so there’s little doubt about his belief in Trapilo. While Day 1 of rookie minicamp is way too early to forecast whether Trapilo takes one of the two starting jobs or opens the season as the Bears’ swing tackle off the bench, Johnson saw a lot of promise leading up to the draft and this week.
“He’s exactly what we thought he was going to be. He’s super smart,” Johnson said, referencing meetings with the linemen Thursday night and Friday morning. “He’s able to apply those concepts to the field immediately, so he’s very advanced in that regard. Technique, fundamentals, he takes those seriously. . . . It’s really impressive for a young guy.”
The Bears drafted Trapilo at 6-8, 316 pounds. Johnson said the staff is still finalizing target weights for the rookies to hit by training camp this summer, but he isn’t too concerned about Trapilo’s size and physique and said he’s “doing a great job.”
Offensive line coach Dan Roushar has been working with Trapilo on his technique, but Trapilo downplayed those changes as “slight tweaks, nothing major.”
Teams typically don’t draft offen-sive linemen as high as Trapilo was just to have them be second-stringers or wait their turn. If he proves to be as good as Poles and Johnson have projected, Trapilo should be a strong candidate to start the season at left tackle. By September, it’s conceivable he could be as good as or better than Jones, who struggled at times last season and is recovering from a broken ankle that might not be fully good to go by the start of training camp.
Poles also has been open to the idea of shifting Wright to left tackle. Although Wright played both right and left in college at Tennessee, he has been fairly entrenched on the right side after starting 33 games there the last two seasons.
All those factors create an ideal scenario for Trapilo, who can gain ground at a time when the Bears are eager to settle on a starting five and establish consistency. If he looks ready to roll in August, he’ll make their decision easy.