Bears defensive tackle Jordan van den Berg is moving fast up the practice ladder, and the change is now showing up in first-team reps after an impressive training camp. Bears DC Dennis Allen said the sixth-round rookie began with the threes, caught the staff’s attention, and kept forcing the coaches to look for more work for him with higher units.
That rise matters because it tells you van den Berg is no longer just a camp body getting evaluated in the background. Allen said the staff starts by seeing whether a player can handle the threes, then looks to get that player with the twos and the ones if the performance keeps holding. In other words, the rookie has done enough to move from one test to the next, and that is where he is now getting a closer look.
Allen was blunt about the process. When a player starts with the threes and then shows up enough to draw notice, the staff tries to find ways to get him extra reps. But Allen also said the real evaluation only happens when that same level of play carries over against the twos and the ones. That is the line van den Berg is being asked to cross, and it is the reason his camp has become a real development story instead of a quiet summer note.
The detail also explains why the keyword is drawing attention now. This is a training-camp change, not a season-long trend, and it comes with an open question attached to it: first-team reps are a sign of trust, but they are not yet a promise. Allen’s comments show the Bears are still in the middle of deciding how much the rookie can handle when the speed and the pressure go up.
The same roundup that carried Allen’s comments also moved into other NFC notes, including Justin Jefferson and Jacob Thomas. Jefferson said he needs to keep lifting teammates like QB J.J. McCarthy as a captain, while the Vikings signed S Jacob Thomas as an undrafted free agent out of James Madison this offseason. Tai Felton said the Vikings got a baller in Jacob Thomas, and Colin Hitschler said Thomas is always proving people wrong.
For van den Berg, the next step is simple and difficult at the same time: keep earning the kind of practice work that gets coaches to notice, then prove he can do it against better units for as long as they keep giving him the chance. Right now, he has moved from the third group into the conversation. What he has not yet secured is the role that would make that rise matter in September.
