LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- The Chicago Bears continue to deal with injury concerns to one of their top draft picks.
Rookie wide receiver Luther Burden III, who the Bears drafted 39th overall, has not practiced since suffering a hamstring injury during Chicago's first OTA on May 20. Burden was expected to be ready for the start of training camp after missing spring workouts but has yet to take the field.
"We were very hopeful that he'd be ready to go Day 1," Bears coach Ben Johnson said Thursday. "But the soft tissue that he was dealing with there in the springtime lingered a little bit longer than we wanted. So really, it's day-to-day with him. Hopeful we'll get him out there fairly soon, though."
Rookies Shemar Turner (ankle) and Zah Frazier (personal) were also absent from Thursday's practice.
Burden was a first-team All-SEC selection during the 2023-24 seasons and earned AP All-American honors during his sophomore season when he totaled 1,212 receiving yards. The Bears drafted Burden after using their first-round pick on tight end Colston Loveland, the first time in the common draft era (since 1967) that Chicago drafted pass catchers with its first two picks.
Burden is expected to compete for the Bears' No. 3 receiver role behind DJ Moore and Rome Odunze. With Burden sidelined, veteran wide receivers Olamide Zaccheaus and Devin Duvernay have taken reps with the first-team unit during the early days of training camp.
In the meantime, coaches are emphasizing mental preparation for the rookie.
"Everything that our training staff is telling us we can do physically with him, we're utilizing," Johnson said. "I know [wide receivers] coach [Antwaan] Randle El has been all over him in meetings, keeping him involved, he's being quizzed non-stop. Our quarterbacks are taking him to the side whether it's walk-throughs or on their own.
"So he's utilizing that time as much as he can, but there's really no substitute for full-speed reps, and so the sooner we get him out there, the quicker he can carve a role for himself."
Johnson said he's hopeful that Burden will be on the field for his first training camp practice in a "few" days while classifying his status as "day-to-day."
Last week, Burden was the last of Chicago's three second-round picks to sign his rookie contract, which is a fully guaranteed deal worth $10.965 million. He is the first player drafted 39th overall to sign a fully guaranteed contract.