Bears tackle Theo Benedet confident despite daunting challenge

His confidence is up but already was. Playing in the NFL hardly leaves him wide-eyed.

Asked if he would have believed he’d be starting in a game for the Bears against Crosby two years if someone told him this back then, he wasn’t afraid to talk about his big dreams.

“I would’ve believed them,” he said. “That was the plan all along. That was what I had my eyes fixed on.

“But I’m not done. This is just the beginning for me. I wanted to get to the point where I would have this opportunity to prove myself.”

Benedet was behind both starting tackles Wright and Braxton Jones, Trapilo and Kiran Amegadjie when training camp started, but coaches kept seeing a tackle outperforming other backups if not starters during camp.  Starting Benedet instead of Trapilo is sure to infuriate some Bears fans because of draft pdigree.

Benedet might have been taken more seriously before this season if not for an injury that more or less caused him to be cut. It’s possible he would have been cut last year, anyway, when he was known more for singing Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” wearing just his eagle underwear on HBO’s Hard Knocks. But he suffered a right hamstring injury during the Hall of Fame Game against Houston and then missed the rest of camp before being waived and signed to the practice squad.

On HBO’s Hard Knocks, Bears senior director of sports medicine Andre Tucker described it as a Grade 2 hamstring strain caused when he inadvertently did the splits

 “We are estimating this is going to be anywhere from at least four, maybe even five weeks, so that takes him to the end of camp before he would return,” Tucker said in a segment on Hard Knocks.

Being around the team all year did help him, though.

“Last year in many ways, after I got hurt, my role was much more as a locker room guy than it was a guy in the field,” he said.

Last week’s game helped too.

“Just getting familiar with NFL defenses, the speed of NFL regular season games, all that stuff,” he said. ”And then last week getting in at right tackle, especially because I’ve been mostly on the left as camp was kinda winding down, was nice.”

His confidence level facing Crosby isn’t where it might be for a rookie or even a veteran facing him for the first time.

“Very high,” he said. “We all are. We understand the work is what gives you that confidence. We practice hard all week. It should translate.”

The key against Crosby is two-fold. There is the initial explosive burst, but in his case many of his sacks come through second effort because he never stops.

“It’s just being switched on all the time, not letting him kinda lull you into sleep or feeling comfortable because that’s when he’ll hit a counter or something you haven’t seen and make you pay,” Benedet said. “Just staying switched on and understanding that all those guys (on the Raiders) can hurt you.”

Benedet will be joining the starting offensive line at a time when they all have a goal of improving the struggling running game.

They met as a full offensive group this week instead of breaking into smaller position groups. in order to get answers

“We had done a couple times in camp, just in terms of meeting as a unit on offense,” Benedet said. “I think there’s a lot of value in that in terms of understanding how we’re working 11 as one.

“You can be more detailed in your position group meeting and get more individual coaching, but in terms of assignment and holding people accountable, I think it really hits home when you have to talk about it in front of the group, when the whole group understands your responsibility on the play and you know you have to execute for them even more.”

It's going to take a similar total team effort to stop Crosby Sunday from wrecking the game, as coach Ben Johnson likes to say.

Benedet is just a starting point for this, but a confident one.