LAKE FOREST, Ill. (WGN) — The Chicago Bears’ business trip to Cincinnati offered a glimpse into the importance of the center position and how integral Garrett Bradbury could be to the success — or failure — of the Bears’ offense in 2026.
Bradbury played nine snaps in the Bears’ 27-9 loss to the Bengals on Sunday and held his own against a Cincinnati defensive line that sat most of its starters. No pre-snap penalties or snap infractions were called with Bradbury running the show in the middle of Chicago’s offensive line. He helped open holes for runs of four, six and ten yards for running back Roschon Johnson. Bradbury didn’t give up a pressure on any of Caleb Williams’ five pass attempts.
But the real meat and potatoes played out during the Bears’ joint practice with the Bengals two days prior.
Over the offseason, Cincinnati revamped its defense. A trade with the New York Giants brought in two-time All-Pro defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence as the centerpiece for a new-look group of defenders that also includes additions like defensive linemen Jonathan Allen and Boye Mafe, and safety Bryan Cook.
Lawrence, Mafe and Allen, joined by defensive ends Myles Murphy (5.5 sacks in 2026) and Cashius Howell — a second-round pick and Cincinnati’s top draft choice in 2026 — provided an ample test for the Bears’ offensive line on Thursday.
And, outside of the competition at left tackle, no one was more under the microscope up front than Bradbury, who will serve as the tip of the spear up front, communicating blitz pickups, ID’ing the MIKE and working to ensure a smooth snap between him and Caleb Williams in 2026.
“It was a good test for us. Some things to work on, for sure,” Williams said after practice. “We spoke about them out there in the field. We had a fumbled snap in our first one, and that’s obviously not something that you want to have in a game or practice. It’s just being able to communicate on those and figure out what happened. If I was too quick, if I was too slow, because obviously, first snap, you want to get moving.
“You have got a guy over there that is a good player, and you want to get in position and make sure [that] it’s just him and I being able to work together and communicate on those things.”
Earlier this month, Bradbury compared playing center in Ben Johnson’s offense to getting “the keys to the car [and] you get to take that ownership and make a lot of calls.”
“I kind of love that piece of the game,” Bradbury said. “Sometimes, it’s a little bit like a puzzle, and you’ve got to solve the puzzle right before the ball’s snapped. Then you’ve got to do your job.”
Now, a fumbled snap right off the bat is about as ideal as a February fire drill at 2 a.m., but expecting Bradbury to “solve the puzzle” more often than not against a talent like Lawrence is also a steep ask. Especially when the situation is an impromptu trial by fire, as opposed to a prepared plan of attack.
“Within a practice, and joint practice, you’re not necessarily scheming players. You’re going out there and you’re executing,” Williams said. “Obviously, you’re not calling plays that won’t work versus the defense coordinator in this system. But you’re not necessarily scheming fully. And so, that’s something that we’ll do throughout the weeks, and we’ll execute those plays.”
The Athletic’s Kevin Fishbain detailed a morning practice where Lawrence was a disruptor in the middle. Fishbain described how Lawrence helped Cincinnati “mostly bottle up” Chicago’s run game and how, during team drills, he tipped and picked a screen pass from Williams. In the Bears’ first two-minute situation, Fishbain also talked about how he helped pressure Williams into three straight incomplete passes.
“He’s an All-Pro guy. He’s one of the best — if not the best defensive tackle — with [the Kansas City Chiefs’] Chris Jones and all of them up there,” Williams said. “He’s a force to be reckoned with.”
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for Chicago’s offense, though. The offensive line found ways to win, and when they did, Williams showed off talents familiar to Bears faithful.
CHGO’s Adam Jahns detailed red-zone touchdown passes to Kaden Davis, Colston Loveland and Kalif Raymond during the third team period of practice. The Bears posted Loveland’s touchdown to Twitter/X afterward — a laser off play-action placed right over the top of a Bengals defensive back into the elevating arms of Loveland.
There were some pluses and some minuses, all things considered. If anything, the highs and lows of Thursday’s joint practice were symbolic of what has been an up-and-down training camp for Chicago.
Williams and the first string offense have dazzled in camp, but lingering pre-snap concerns at the Bears’ offensive line positions in question have left meat on the bone, and Johnson is looking for more consistency.
“Really what I want to see, I want to see alignment, assignment, pre-snap taken care of,” Johnson said of Bradbury and Williams before joint practice on Thursday. “A year ago, those joint practices, they were discombobulated. That’s not what we’re looking for. I just want to see clean, concise. What we’ve been doing over the last couple weeks, just see that translate.
“Everybody keep their composure throughout practice here, and operate at a high level.”
The jury is still out on what the film revealed about the Bears’ offense during joint practice. But the nine plays that featured Bradbury and the rest of Chicago’s starting offensive line (minus Joe Thuney) on Saturday showed progress to the point that Bradbury’s play seems closer to his Pro Bowl predecessor than other Bears centers from years past, like Coleman Shelton or Lucas Patrick.
If that ends up being the case, it’s good news for Chicago. The success of their 2026 offense may depend on Bradbury because recent data paints a grim picture for teams that experience a year-over-year drop-off in performance at the center position.
Cause for Concern
The surprise retirement of 2025 Pro Bowl center Drew Dalman hangs on the wall in the background of this season like a prized painting gathering dust during an unexpected remodel.
It’s the reason Bradbury finds himself in a Bears uniform, and if he can’t find a way to adequately fill Dalman’s shoes, the bread and butter of Johnson’s offense may be in line for regression.
We’re talking run game, folks.
Whether it be a recent example like the Detroit Lions or slightly older ones like the New York Jets and Tennessee Titans in the 2000s, teams tend to see a steep drop-off in run production a year after losing their Pro Bowl-caliber (or better) center, which coincides with a decline in the win column.
Just take a look at the 2024-25 Lions, the 2009-10 Titans and the 2004-05 Jets when it comes to rush yards per game, yards per rush attempt and rush first down percentage.
Rush yards per game (RYPG) and yards per rush attempt (YPRA) are pretty self-explanatory stats, but rush first down percentage (R1D%) is a little more nuanced. Think of R1D% as not only the percentage of a team’s first downs that came via the run, but also a representation of how confident teams were that they could run the ball for a first down.
In each case for the three teams listed above, they saw moderate-to-heavy decline across all three statistics, and each team had two things in common — they lost their star center for all (or most) of Year 2, and stumbled down the standings.
New York and Tennessee both lost All-Decade center Kevin Mawae. The Jets lost him six games into 2005 to injury, while the Titans lost Mawae to retirement after 2009. Detroit lost Frank Ragnow to retirement after the 2024 season.
New York digressed from 10-6 and a win in the AFC Wild Card Round to 4-12 a year later. Tennessee went from a .500 team at 8-8 in 2004, to a team with a losing record of 6-10 in 2005. The Lions fell from the NFC’s No. 1 seed at 15-2 in 2024 to third place in the NFC North and missing the playoffs at 9-8 last year.
It’s a less than ideal outlook for Chicago if Bradbury doesn’t play well, but they do have a saving grace.
The 2024 Philadelphia Eagles. Kind of.
First-team All-Pro center Jason Kelce was replaced by Cam Jurgens after Kelce announced his retirement following the 2023 season, and the Eagles saw a significant jump in RYPG (124 to 184.1), YPRA (4.3 to 5.0) and R1D% (38.97% to 45.58%) from 2023 to 2024.
But the jump in production could also be attributed to Philadelphia upgrading from D’Andre Swift to Saquon Barkley at running back, Brian Johnson to Kellen Moore at offensive coordinator, and having the best offensive tackle tandem in football — Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson — bookending its offensive line.
Oh, and Jurgens made back-to-back Pro Bowls in 2024 and 2025. That’s quite a few rolls of the dice coming up lucky 7’s for the Eagles to overcome losing Kelce.
But the Bears have the play-calling element in Johnson leading the offense, and the talent in Thuney, Darnell Wright and Jonah Jackson to help make up for the loss of Dalman along the offensive line.
Chicago finished the 2025 regular season averaging the NFL’s third-highest RYPG (142.3), while also coming in with the fifth-highest YPRA (4.7) and R1D% (39.01%). Bradbury doesn’t have to pull a Jurgens and make a Pro Bowl given all the talent around him, but he does need to pull his own weight.
Which, by all accounts, has happened so far.
“That’s the beauty of having a guy like Garrett, who’s been around a few different offensive systems now. [He’s] extremely sharp, phenomenal communicator,” Johnson said. “He’s loud. He’s clear. He’s decisive. [We] love where he’s at with all that. I think more than anything, he’s just been trying to feel us out in terms of the expectations that [Dan] Roshar, myself, Press Taylor, that we need out of that center position.
“And so, it’s a little bit different from other places that he’s been, and yet he’s doing a phenomenal job getting after it.”
Added Bradbury later that same day: “It feels like we’ve been here forever, but we’re just getting started … It’s going to take more walkthroughs. It’s going to take some joint practices. It’s all got to come together, but it’s headed in the right direction.”
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