Do Chicago Bears rookie reps indicate huge success ahead for 2025?

Trapilo could wind up with very few reps because Braxton Jones could be starter. He's looked solid when he has practiced despite the ankle surgery he's now over. In fact, there's no guarantee Trapilo would be starter if Jones was traded.

Chicago Sports Network's Clay Harbor has been a regular at training camp practices and said he sees Kiran Amegadjie as the team's most improved player. That makes two of us.

Amegadjie is nothing like the player who failed last year, after he tried to play at midseason without getting in any offseason work or training camp. He also didn't even get practice reps at his position during the week they called upon him to play.

Expecting 300-900 reps is pretty broad and worthless prediction, a comical one.

They also see 450-550 snaps for defensive tackle Shemar Turner. With Andrew Billings, Grady Jarrett, a more established Gervon Dexter and Dayo Odeyingbo shifting back inside for pass rush situations, finding 450 to 550 reps for a rookie who currently has an ankle injury seems unlikely. Dexter had onlh 432 himself and was a key player in 2023 when drafted.

Also wrong is the 850-950 reps projected for Luther Burden III. That puts him in the range of the 950 reps on offense Rome Odunze had as a rookie. It's not going to happen with all of the competition for reps he'll have and with Johnson's emphasis on balance in the attack.

Burden has competition for is position from a proven veteran, Olamide Zaccheaus, and with rookie Colston Loveland playing a second tight end position on the inside, he's sure to remove some reps from an interior slot receiver.

The only rep projection that seems close to accurate is Colston Loveland's 700-850 -- again a prediction by someone unwilling to nail it down to a more specific total. Sam LaPorta, playing in Johnson's offense, had 981 reps on offense as a rookie, so 850 would be a total close to what the Lions got from their valued move tight end.

Those mistaken projections should help a fantasy owner determine the under is the likely best projection for most of those Bears rookies, except possibly Loveland.

However the reps situation for rookies says something else for the Bears this year.

The under total on reps doesn't indicate how badly they've drafted. Instead, what it says is the Bears roster has been built up over the years under Ryan Poles to the point where a draft class projected as talented can't accumulate sufficient rep totals. There's going to be a talent surplus on the roster preventing Loveland, Burden, Trapilo and Turner from getting reps. They'll have to split some.

Especially now and going forward, it appears that the Poles-Ben Johnson picks will be better as a collaborative work, and they'll face difficulty earning playing time because the other players they have already are going to command some of reps.

The rookie rep will become less and less a thing over coming years for the Johnson-Poles tag team as the roster gets better and better.

All of this is apparent from a projection for reps.

It says very little for the rookie class being able to put up numbers to benefit a team greatly right off the bat.

It says it will take some time to accomplish larger numbers, but they can still contribute nonetheless this year in niche roles within the attack.