Luther Burden III was supposed to be one of the feel-good stories of Bears training camp. Instead, the second-year receiver is now nursing a groin strain that's going to keep him off the field for essentially the entire preseason, and the timing stings given how much buzz he'd built up in Chicago.
The injury reportedly happened during red zone work when Burden got tangled up with cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, per ESPN. It's the kind of freak, non-contact-adjacent mishap that derails a summer fast, and within hours it had fantasy football Twitter spiraling about draft boards.
I feel like the Burden news just makes this choice even harder 😵💫
Burden was the Bears' second-round pick back in 2025, the 39th overall selection after a Missouri career that produced 192 catches, 2,263 yards and 21 touchdowns across three seasons. Plenty of draft analysts had him pegged as a first-rounder before he slid, and as a rookie he backed that talent up with 47 catches for 652 yards and 2 touchdowns. A groin strain now threatens to eat into the exact window — camp reps, chemistry-building, preseason snaps — that a young receiver usually leans on to take the next step.
Not everyone's panicking, though. NFL analyst Hayden Winks shrugged off the severity, framing it as a short-term absence rather than a real setback.
Just a little bit of time with a groin injury, he gonna be back no worries
Adam Schefter's follow-up gave the story its real shape: Burden is expected to miss the preseason entirely with the strained groin, but the Bears believe he'll be ready for the regular-season opener against the Panthers. That's the best-case version of this news — lose a month of camp, not a chunk of the actual season.
Still, a month on the shelf is a real dent for a receiver trying to build on a promising rookie year and cement a bigger role in Chicago's offense. The Bears are staying optimistic publicly, but until Burden is back running routes at full speed, this is going to hover over camp as one of the bigger question marks heading into the season.