The commonality amongst most of the Bears' roster this season consists of fringe-roster veterans who've snagged short-term, minimum risk deals from Ryan Poles and the Bears' front office.
Nevertheless, there's a few stragglers the new regime wants to keep with them, like Roquan Smith and the newly drafted 2022 class.
Two names to add to that list include Justin Fields and Darnell Mooney. Fields is going into his second year with the team after a tumultuous rookie year under former head coach Matt Nagy and behind veteran quarterback Andy Dalton.
Mooney, on the other hand, is going into his third year in the league -- his first as the number one option in the Bears' passing game. He caught for over 1,000 yards last season, getting in the endzone four times. He increased his role in the offense. But, this year he'll see a larger increase.
Fields and Mooney are nearly in the same boat. Both extremely athletic with a distinguished game they can call their own. Fields is a mobile quarterback with a big arm and Mooney is an agile route-runner with a knack for going deep.
A perfect combination.
Yet, they still have a lot left to prove. As aforementioned, Fields struggled in his first year (albeit with a rough supporting cast in a lot of areas) and Mooney is going into his first season without Allen Robinson taking defensive attention.
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But, the two are in this together, as Fields depicted in his presser on day one of training camp.
"Being with Mooney more," Fields said. "You know, just his work ethic and just his mindset on things. He got drafted in the sixth-round (actually the fifth) or something like that and seeing how he's progressing in these past few years and just seeing how hard he works."
Speaking of commonalities, the two share the most praised work ethics on the roster. Fields has been praised by anyone and everyone football and Mooney received his kudos via a feature from The Athletic.
"I think I've said this before but he pushes me to be better," Fields said. "I think we push each other. We got together a couple times over the break and we would come here at 10:30 at night and try to get our timing together."
Hopefully, under Luke Getsy's offense, two new offensive lineman (Schofield and Reiff) and an overloaded work ethic between the two, they can prove they are the future of the offense for the Bears. For now, they keep working.
Day one of training camp kicked off on Tuesday at Halas Hall.