Bears

Bears’ second-round C Logan Jones enters their offseason program in competition for the starting job against Garrett Bradbury. Jones said he’s in a “race against time” to develop and earnt he trust of their coaching staff. 

“It’s kind of a race against time,” Jones said, via Dan Wiederer of The Athletic. “You’re trying to get better as fast as you can, right? And be ready. It’s going to go (quickly) and the next thing you know we’re going to be in fall camp.”

Jones had 50 starts as Iowa’s center. Chicago HC Ben Johnson feels they are getting “more of a seasoned player” in Jones. 

“To me, it’s not, ‘We’re getting a rookie,’” Johnson said. “We’re getting a guy who’s a little bit more of a seasoned player, which really is not uncommon for those Iowa linemen.”

In the end, Jones is focused on learning and having fun. 

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Jones said. “I know I have a long road ahead of me. But it’s something I look forward to. I’m not going to be perfect. Nobody’s going to be perfect. It’s an imperfect game. But as long as I continue to grow, learn and have fun, then at the end of the day, (you) just go out there, play some football, keep it simple, and run off the ball and block.”

Cardinals

Cardinals third-round QB Carson Beck said that the importance of learning the team’s cadence is another tool that can help him create mismatches pre-snap with the defense.

“You can try to trick a defense or just kind of keeps them off balance,” Beck said, via ESPN. “You can use cadence as a weapon. So obviously that’s something that I’m going to have to practice as I head into this, but I think it’ll be good. You can use that as a weapon if you can get good at it. So I’m excited to kind of dive into that a little bit more.”

Beck has had experience in a pro-style offense, which plays to his favor, according to HC Mike LaFleur.

“It’s not like he hasn’t had attached tight ends,” LaFleur said. “It’s not like he hasn’t been in 12 personnel. It’s not like he hasn’t been under center and done a play-action fake or, shoot, even take a snap from under center like a lot of guys haven’t. So it’s just I would say the comfortability of playing under center, playing in the gun, playing with different formations, motions and stuff like that. It’s not the end all, be all by any means, but definitely if there was a tie, you’d say, ‘Yeah, I want the guy that’s actually done some of that over the guy that hasn’t.‘”

Beck added that he’s learning the offense and wants to eventually have his number called to start for the team next year.

“You are consistently and constantly learning, just through game experience, through practice experience, meetings,” Beck said. “I mean, just talking to guys around the facility, just trying to get all the little breadcrumbs that I can from each and every person. But again, everybody wants to play football, especially at the position of quarterback. You want to be the guy out there. It’s such an interesting position and why I think it’s the best position on Earth is that there’s only one guy out there. It’s not like wide receiver. If you’re in 11 personnel, you got three guys out there. D-line, you’re a four-down team, you got four guys out there. At quarterback, there’s one guy out there doing it. So, I mean, obviously I would love to play and perform, but again, we’ll see where that takes me and really just showing up and going to go to work.”

Rams

• When asked about the Rams potentially trading away next year’s draft picks, Albert Breer of SI writes that taking QB Ty Simpson at No. 13 overall gives Los Angeles some flexibility with 2027’s selections, given they don’t have to worry about taking a quarterback over the next two years.