CHICAGO — It’s an NFL tradition. Each rookie stands in front of a team meeting and sings a karaoke song to the group. It’s relatively harmless rookie hazing.
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams was famously jeered off the stage by teammates in 2024. A year ago, tight end Colston Loveland crushed it with “Let Me Love You” by Mario.
This year, undrafted rookie offensive lineman Jaren Kump thought he crushed it last week with “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne.
“The team started singing along and I got an applause,” Kump said Saturday after making his preseason debut at Soldier Field.
The 6-foot-5, 306-pound lineman out of Utah didn’t realize a special guest was in the audience that day. Shortly after Kump’s rousing rendition, coach Ben Johnson brought out none other than New York Yankees icon Derek Jeter to speak to the team.
“It was funny, I sing my rookie song right before that team meeting,” Kump recalled, struggling to stifle a laugh. “So he was able to see me perform with my lack of vocal talents. It was awesome.”
It’s a story Kump will tell for years. He added another story to his repertoire Saturday: He played in an NFL game.
For all the Bears rookies, Saturday’s 34-10 preseason win over the Cleveland Browns was an important milestone. There’s nothing like those first NFL snaps. Something Jeter told the team last week seemed to really resonate with the rookies.
“One of the things he said was basically if you don’t have butterflies, you might be a psychopath, but it probably means that you don’t care enough,” rookie tight end Sam Roush said. “Obviously I had butterflies (Saturday). I get nervous before the games. Always.”
Added first-round draft pick Dillon Thieneman: “If you don’t have that, you don’t love the game.”
Many of the starters — including Williams — didn’t play Saturday. The rookies took center stage. Here’s which rookie moments stood out against the Browns.
1. Linemen Logan Jones and Caden Barnett saw significant work.
The Bears rested their starting offensive line. That led to opportunities for rookies Jones at center and Barnett at right guard.
Jones, a second-round pick out of Iowa, and Barnett, an undrafted lineman out of Wyoming, both played into the second half. It was a sizable chunk of playing time for two rookies who might not be in the starting lineup right away but are very much a part of the Bears’ plans moving forward.
The Bears drafted Jones so high because they see him as their center of the future. Barnett signed a UDFA contract with a sizable guarantee of more than $277,000. Teams don’t do that unless they have high hopes for a player.
On Saturday, it was both Jones and Barnett who sprang running back Salvon Ahmed free on a screen pass from third-string quarterback Case Keenum that went for a 49-yard touchdown. Barnett shoved Browns linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio off him to help spring Ahmed free.
“You take one and you give one,” Barnett said. “I’m not going to act like I didn’t have my own welcome-to-the-NFL moment getting put on my back (earlier in the game). It happens. But it was such a huge blessing.”
These preseason games are learning moments. Jones played in a pro-style system at Iowa, but nothing quite prepares a player for his first NFL moments.
“It’s crazy how much quicker it is than college ball,” Jones said. “We’ve been practicing for 12 or so practices and then to get in the game — it was a lot of fun actually to compete against somebody else.”
2. Cornerback Malik Muhammad made a few stops.
The fourth-round draft pick played significant snaps at outside corner and also worked in at nickel. The Bears have been training Muhammad to learn both spots. With a banged-up secondary, that versatility will be vital. Muhammad had five tackles in the game.
“I’m a rookie, man, I just go out there and play,” Muhammad said. “What do I really got to lose? They put the challenge to me. They put a lot on me with playing nickel and corner, and I just go out there and play. Just let it rip.”
At one point, Muhammad slipped between a pair of blocker and blew up a screen pass for no gain. Later in the game, he was called for a defensive holding penalty. Again, the Bears know there will be good moments and bad.
Muhammad has seen reps with the starters in camp. Ideally, the Bears wouldn’t have a rookie seeing major snaps in the secondary, but Muhammad appears to be taking everything head-on. In the NFL, the best laid plans change quickly because of injuries. The Bears learned that last year with Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon missing much of the regular season.
If Muhammad can keep finding his way to the football, the coaching staff will find a way to get him on the field.
“(Tackling) was a huge emphasis with me coming out this year on the draft,” Muhammad said. “Work on the tackling, work on the tackling. Then just knowing I’m going to play nickel and be in the box. You’ve got to be physical.”
3. Tight end Sam Roush hauled in his first catch.
Roush caught his first ball on a pass from Tyson Bagent near the sideline. An ankle tackle from Browns safety Christopher Edmonds saved what could’ve been a big play.
Roush was kicking himself for not breaking the tackle, but it still felt good to have the ball in his hands at Soldier Field.
“Once I took one or two snaps it was like, ‘All right, playing football, I’ve been doing this for a while,’” Roush said. “It’s not a whole lot different than it was in college.”
Ben Johnson has big plans for the third-round pick out of Stanford who has seen reps with the starters and the second team during camp. Teams across the NFL are leaning more heavily on the tight end position, and Johnson appears to have plans to deploy all three of his — Roush, Loveland and Cole Kmet — frequently.
Look no further than the first offensive play of the game. Johnson ran out 14 personnel with four tight ends on the field: Roush, Hayden Large, Qadir Ismail and Stephen Carlson. After an offseason full of talk about the position, Johnson may have been trying to make a subtle point.
Either that or he’s testing his tight ends. Roush lined up as the X receiver on the play.
“You’ve got to know everything,” Roush said. “If we’re in this formation, where am I? You’ve got to understand kind of what everybody’s doing.”
Roush caught two passes for 15 yards Saturday and he was also a big part of the running game as a blocker.
Roush admittedly wasn’t a big baseball guy growing up, but even he was wowed when Jeter walked into the meeting room at Halas Hall last week. Roush has a whole page of notes from the meeting.
“You’ve just got to go out there with a calculated approach and a calculated aggression and the butterflies start to go away,” Roush said.
It appears they did Saturday.