Wright's practice injury puts the one thing Chicago thought it had settled back in question

Darnell Wright's four-year, $116 million extension — the richest right-tackle contract in NFL history — was signed on August 4 and was supposed to be the one clean piece of news from an otherwise bruising camp. Now there's an injury to monitor there too, with Wright hurt during a recent practice and the Bears left to figure out what they have roughly three weeks before the opener.

The timing is lousy in a specific way. This camp has been defined by the offense losing pieces it thought it could count on — Monangai's knee, Burden's groin, the backfield thinning to essentially one reliable back in D'Andre Swift. The offensive line was the floor under all of it, the thing protecting Caleb Williams while everything else got sorted. Wright is the anchor of that line, and right now his status is unclear.

What happens next matters more than the injury itself. If Wright misses the final preseason weeks but is ready for Week 1, this is a scare. If it lingers, the Bears are looking at a line that has to protect a quarterback whose second season produced 4,560 yards and 31 touchdowns — numbers that assume the pocket holds. The depth behind Wright at tackle hasn't shown enough in camp to inspire confidence if he's unavailable for any stretch of meaningful games.

The Bears have been managing one fire after another since early August, and most of them have been on defense. This one is different. The secondary problems are real and serious, but the team built its offensive identity around protecting Williams and running Swift. Wright going down, even briefly, touches both.