Bears Nightcap: Beanie Bishop Jr., Backups Shine in Preseason Opener ...Middle East

I said the other day that, unlike most, I love meaningless preseason games in August. Today’s Bears-Browns contest lived up to the billing. It was close in the first half. Then a blowout in the second half. We got into weird-number territory (Kaden Davis was preseason awesome, but he’s wearing No. 27), and if I were still in Chicago, I would have had the window open breeze I associate with this.

If you missed it, that first graph was a callback to my story on Friday, where we took a walk down memory lane and discussed Bears preseason stars of yesteryear.

I’m sure the hope for Beanie Bishop Jr. is more than that designation, but today, he was the bottom of the depth chart guy that balled out and made the just-intently-enough watching experience worth it. In fairness, Bishop did play 17 games for the Steelers in 2024 and even had four interceptions.

After zero regular-season games in 2025, Bishop has four career picks. He had two today in the Bears preseason lid-lifter.

Here’s the first:

Beanie Bishop Jr. takes it away ?: FOX32 pic.twitter.com/jQJJuPnIK6

And the second:

Beanie Bishop Jr. AGAIN?: FOX32 pic.twitter.com/f3BCwvWz9g

Not too shabby. Here’s the thing: if Bishop can continue to have a strong preseason, he might have a shot to make the regular-season 53 with the injuries the secondary is dealing with.

Bears Loose Ends Worth Noting

The most important thing to happen Saturday was that nothing serious did. Nobody got badly hurt, which is the whole ballgame in mid-August for a team that’s been snakebitten all camp. Safety Xavier Woods (signed just over a week ago) left with a groin injury and didn’t return, so he’s the one to watch, and a few others (Ruben Hyppolite, Nephi Sewell, Nikola Kalinic) exited banged up. But given the injury luck lately, walking away this clean counts.

Up front, Jamree Kromah made the loudest case of anyone in a Bears uniform. On a defensive line that finished near the bottom of the league last year and got almost no offseason attention, Kromah looked like a problem for Cleveland all day. Six tackles, three of them for loss, two quarterback hits, two sacks, and a strip of Watson for good measure. James Lynch was disruptive alongside him. Neither is a lock for the 53, but both made the roster math tougher, and they get a Cincinnati offensive line next week that won’t offer much resistance.

The left tackle competition stayed muddy. Kiran Amegadjie drew the start and, to my eye, looked the steadier of the two options while rotating through. Jedrick Wills, facing the team that drafted him 10th overall in 2020, had the rougher outing. His low point was a sack he surrendered to Julian Okwara late in the first half, when he was slow to pick up the rush and effectively escorted him into Bagent. Neither did enough to seize anything, though, and the guy with the real lead on this job wasn’t even playing: frontrunner Braxton Jones, sidelined by a knee issue, is expected back at practice this week. This one’s a long way from settled.

Cairo Santos missed his first attempt, though a shaky snap-and-hold might share the blame. Rookie long snapper Beau Gardner, a Georgia All-American, is the presumptive starter, but a wayward snap in the opener is exactly the sort of thing that gets a veteran brought in to compete, just to be safe.

Other than that, it’s like I said: non-consequential August football. Hope you had an enjoyable afternoon. These nightcaps are only going to get more intense as we go.

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