| 05 August 2010
Perhaps the most interesting story to emerge from camp was the addition of an unexpected position battle along the offensive line. Second year guard Lance Louis is pushing hard to unseat long time starter Roberto Garza at the right guard spot after surprising everyone by making the 53 man roster as a seventh round selection in 2009. 
The original thought was that Louis would push for time as the starting left guard, but with Josh Beekman and Johan Asiata battling it out for that spot, Mike Tice chose to find a spot for Louis to compete. That spot was the right guard spot and compete he has to this point in camp. Tice even stated that it’s an open competition between Garza, who is the second longest consecutive games started O-Linemen on the team behind Olin Kreutz.
Garza has always been solid and completely unspectacular as a starter on the offensive line. He is also not going to get any better and certainly doesn’t have any upside given he’s 31-years-old. Enter Louis who has done nothing but compete since the day he was drafted here in Chicago. Louis is young and athletic and big enough to get the job done. Nine practices into the 2010 camp season and he is again asserting himself as one of the best young backups on the roster.
The key for Louis will be how well he looks in the pre-season and can he take a step forward from last year’s performance this this year? If he continues to take to Mike Tice’s coaching and Johan Asiata continues to push on the left side as a first team guard, Garza could be out of a job. It would seem highly unlikely that the Bears would carry four offensive guards on the 53-man roster as most teams prefer to carry more offensive tackles over guards.
At the end of the day if things are really close the Bears may prefer to go with a youth movement at the guard position and you could see Garza as the first veteran in a long time to be handed walking papers after training camp.
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