The Bears held a joint practice with the Bills Friday at Halas Hall in a session that was open to the public. Here's what transpired:

Quarterback Caleb Williams delivered a strong performance against one of the NFL's best defenses, completing several pinpoint passes to an array of receivers.

On back-to-back snaps early in practice, Williams connected with receiver Rome Odunze in traffic over the middle and then hit receiver Olamide Zaccheaus, who did not appear to be the primary option on the play.

After rifling a completion to rookie tight end Colston Loveland over the middle, Williams threw TD passes to Odunze on back-to-back plays in a red-zone drill. Odunze snared the first one crossing the back of the end zone and rolled across the goal line after catching the second one near the left sideline.

In what might have been the most impressive offensive play of the day, Williams later hit Zaccheaus, who turned up field and outraced two Bills defenders for a touchdown.

Backup quarterback Tyson Bagent also excelled against the Bills, completing multiple passes to rookie receiver Luther Burden III. Veteran quarterback Case Keenum did not practice and is day-to-day with a leg injury.

From the ground up

The accuracy that Williams has displayed the past few days no doubt is related to his footwork, something that the Bears have been working on with him.

"It always starts with the feet," said coach Ben Johnson. "It doesn't matter what level you're at. It always starts with the feet for a quarterback, and if you're not aligned properly from the ground up, then you're going to have inconsistencies with your target. That's what we've been talking about.

"Specifically, for all right-handed quarterbacks, when you throw to a target that's moving from right to left, you typically throw it behind. So, you have to train yourself to make sure you're opened up enough to throw to where he's going to be and not where he's at. That's something we talked about going into the summer break and something we still harp on. You can't get enough of that.

"It takes a long time to develop habits. That's the starting point. He's got a beautiful throwing motion. That was ingrained into him at a young age and that still shows up. There's nothing mechanically wrong. It's just all about the alignment and getting out in front of the target."

At the beginning of training camp, Johnson told reporters he'd like Williams to complete at least 70% of his passes in practice and games.

"I don't have the exact number, but we've been underneath that bar, which happens," Johnson said. "We're learning, we're growing. Early on we were probably 55(%). It's gotten better as camp has gone on, but we haven't hit that threshold as often as we would like."

Looking for clarity

The left tackle competition continued Friday, with Theo Benedet taking most of the first-team reps and Braxton Jones also working with the No. 1 offense at times.

Johnson said that he's looking for "hopefully some clarity" at the position.

"This thing has gone on now three-and-a-half weeks," he said. "I said and I'll say it again, we'll go as long as we need to go to find the right guy. But we'd like to see someone go ahead and make it clear to us that he is that guy, and we just haven't seen that yet as a staff. There's been too much up and down.

"We'd love to go ahead and solidify that spot and move forward from there. And it might be one of those things where when we make that decision, it's not final for the season. It could be we have to reassess after a couple of weeks of the season, or by the bye week we might have to reassess. It might be something that goes on. Wouldn't be ideal, but that's the thing with the league."

What began as a three-man battle involving Jones, second-year pro Kiran Amegadjie and rookie second-round pick Ozzy Trapilo became a four-man tussle this week with Benedet playing his way into contention.

"[Benedet] is right in the middle of it," Johnson said. "I've been very, very excited about Theo and what he's done both on the right and left side. He was probably overlooked to start this competition, but the longer this thing's gone on, there's a strong argument for what he's put on tape."

Positive experience

Loveland enjoyed practicing against a Super Bowl contender in the Bills.

"It's a blessing to be able to do that," he said. "That's a team right there and they've got some guys. They came in here and they were competitive, very chirpy, and that's how we wanted it. It was great for us to have that long practice, get down in the dirt and just kind of fight our way out of that. [There's] a lot to learn from it."

Edmunds vs. Allen

Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds now has two red-zone interceptions in two joint practices.

A week after a juggling INT of Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa at Halas Hall, Edmunds made a similar play in the second team period of the day against Buffalo, this time against a familiar face in Bills quarterback Josh Allen.

Allen and Edmunds were both drafted by Buffalo in 2018, Allen as the 7th overall pick and Edmunds as 16th overall. The pair played together for five seasons before Edmunds joined the Bears as a free agent in 2023.

"That's my guy," Edmunds said of Allen. "We came in together. It's a relationship that we built. I was kind of just hollering at him [during practice]. But I didn't really talk too much about the pick to be honest."

Edmunds' interception came on third down with the Bills just yards away from the end zone. Safety Jaquan Brisker was tight in coverage near the goal line and tipped the pass, helping Edmunds ultimately secure the pick.

"Brisk made a big-time play," Edmunds said. "I said, 'I appreciate you man.' He made a big-time play. I kind of was running to the ball and I was able to make a play."

Having played against Allen for years in Bills training camps and in-season practices, the veteran linebacker understands how valuable it is for the Bears defense to face a talent like the veteran QB.

"I mean it's good, going up against an MVP quarterback," Edmunds said. "It's challenging and just being able to execute our stuff, run through our communications and just going through the things that we've been able to do throughout camp. I think we took a step out there. I'm extremely happy with the stuff we put out there. Obviously after every practice there's always stuff that you've got to get better with, but just being able to challenge yourself.

"You play this game to go against the best. He's playing big-time ball. So being able to see where we are, and obviously there's a lot of film that we've got to go back and look at, so I don't know every little thing that happened, but it's always good when you're going against great competition."

While Edmunds was locked in on the competition during the workout, he enjoyed meeting with a lot of former teammates and Bill coaches and staff members after practice.

"The league is about relationships whether you're on a different team or not," Edmunds said. "The relationships that you build, that's the stuff that you remember, obviously when you retire, when you walk away from the game. So just keeping on to those relationships that I had and relationships, that's going to carry with me throughout the rest of my life, just being able to see some of those guys and some of the staff that was there was a good thing. Just being able to sit back and relax a little bit, joke a little bit after practice was good, so definitely wishing them luck with everything else."

Brisker making noise + more Bears takeaways

Along with being part of Edmunds' interception, Brisker made a series of his own plays against the Bills.

In the defense's first 7-on-7 period, Brisker broke up a pass over the middle and a couple plays later, fellow safety Kevin Byard III leapt in front of Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid to intercept Allen.

Brisker was all over the field Friday, adding on to his already impressive training camp. His teammates are taking notice.

"He made a lot of plays," Edmunds said of Brisker. "He made a lot of good plays. Brisk, he's been doing it all camp to be honest with you. He's been doing it all camp. He's been having a big-time camp. I'm taking my hat off to him, like, his attention to detail, just being able to find that ball and make his presence known."

Other defensive standouts from the joint session included rookie linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II, who intercepted Bills backup QB Mike White during a team period, cornerback Nahshon Wright, who broke up several passes to continue his standout camp, and safety Alex Cook, who had a scoop and score in the 11-on-11 red-zone period.

While Edmunds can't draw a firm conclusion on how the defense performed until the group reviews the film, he generally feels that the unit put together a solid effort.

"Initially it was good," Edmunds said. "You want that type of competition. That's a good offense we faced – we're a good defense. So when you have two good opposing forces out there, you get the best of each other … As for initial instincts, we was able to come away with some takeaways. I think each time you walk off the field and you make big plays like that, game-changing plays, initially you're going to think that's good because that's what we play the game for – to be able to set our offense up.

"The defensive line was disruptive up front. So some good things, a lot of positives that we can take away, but you know as it always is, there's going to be some things that we need to correct as well."

Sunday night football

With Bears starters set to play a to-be-determined amount of snaps versus the Bills Sunday night, Johnson will get a first look at defensive coordinator Dennis Allen's No. 1s in game action.

"We have this shared vision of coming off the ball up front, attacking blockers, playing on their side of the line of scrimmage," Johnson said. "Then, the secondary, coming up and challenging receivers in the passing game, re-routing, playing tight coverage. We need to be great tacklers in space.

"That's an area that we were looking to improve from Week 1 to Week 2 here in the preseason. Then, having good eye discipline as well. That's another area that we've been talking about, where we can get better from Week 1 to Week 2."

Edmunds, who watched the Bears' first preseason game from the sideline as most starters did not play, is excited to be thrown into game action against Buffalo. However, he believes playing at Soldier Field won't feel much different because of the physicality and intensity that the Bears have been practicing with throughout camp.

"It's really just going out there and doing it for real," Edmunds said. "The beginning of communication from the sideline, being able to be in those game-like atmospheres … I think that's what it comes down to. Obviously, it's a live game, so being able to make the tackles, we need to tackle, and really just the overall communication from the sideline because it's a different coaching style. So I think it gives everybody an opportunity to go through everything."