CHICAGO — Assistant coaches were made available to the media Wednesday for the first time since the Chicago Bears opened training camp, and one thing they said they appreciate about coach Ben Johnson is how there’s a clear distinction for everything being done.

It’s black and white.

Both passing game coordinator Press Taylor and offensive line coach Dan Roushar used that phrase. It was helpful when the new staff was hired and they built out the playbooks. It was a benefit during the installation period and now as the Bears establish how they want to go about their business. There’s one way to do things. Expectations won’t change and corners won’t be rounded.

Yet as the Bears prepare for their second preseason game Sunday night at Soldier Field against the Buffalo Bills — with starters playing, as Johnson announced Wednesday — the left tackle situation remains gray.

Second-round pick Ozzy Trapilo spent the 1-hour, 45-minute practice playing exclusively right tackle with the second team. Meanwhile, Theo Benedet, who was on the practice squad last year as an undrafted rookie from the University of British Columbia, got some run with the starters at left tackle.

Have the Bears gone from a three-man competition, also involving Braxton Jones and Kiran Amegadjie, to a four-man battle with less than a month until the season begins Sept. 8 against the Minnesota Vikings?

Not necessarily.

The goal is to narrow the focus, not widen it, a little more than halfway through training camp, but Roushar said the team has wanted for some time to get Trapilo work on the right side. Fair enough. Wednesday’s turn of events shouldn’t remove him from consideration after he played 37 snaps at left tackle in the preseason opener.

It stands to reason the coaching staff wants Trapilo to train on both sides if he’s going to be the swing tackle. He has focused almost exclusively at left tackle since arriving. Roushar said as the line gets healthier — Amegadjie was on the field for the last two practices after missing more than a week with a leg injury — the Bears will have the flexibility to mix and match.

What’s unknown is how much work they want Trapilo to receive in practice at right tackle. It would be tricky for him to win the left tackle job while taking reps with the twos on the opposite side.

General manager Ryan Poles invested heavily in the offensive line during the offseason, acquiring a new interior that should add some missing toughness to the offense in both play style and demeanor. The Bears traded for guards Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson and extended both of their contracts, and they made Drew Dalman the NFL’s third-highest-paid center with a big contract in free agency.

Former first-round pick Darnell Wright remains at right tackle — and then there’s the looming question at left tackle that has yet to produce a good answer.

Jones started the preseason opener against the Miami Dolphins and got ample reps Wednesday with the first unit, including in the two-minute period to end the day. Amegadjie, just getting back into the swing of things, worked with the third team at left tackle.

“It’s still a process right now,” Roushar said. “We still have a long ways to go before we determine anything.”

The Bears are expected to have four more training camp practices in full pads, and if the starters play in the preseason finale Aug. 22 in Kansas City, it probably would be a very brief appearance. So the best chances to evaluate the three (or four) candidates for the job are dwindling.

Jones said he made really strong gains in practice last week, something Roushar took notice of.

“That’s exactly what we talked about (Tuesday) on the day off, he and I had a little communication,” Roushar said. “I thought on Friday against Miami in the one-on-ones — and I’m not speaking out the side of my mouth here — I saw him set with balance. His hips were down and he used his length and I saw a player we can win with.

“When I watched him on Sunday, as I told him, ‘You reverted back to whatever this is for you.’ But that’s not acceptable, and so every day we have to go in and we’ll have a standard, we’ll maintain that standard or hold those guys to that standard. Because what he does, or anyone that is playing left tackle or any other position, impacts the entirety of our group.”

Roushar echoed what other coaches have said about Trapilo, that he’s super sharp.

“When he’s gotten himself in front of the rush and he’s thrown his hands, it’s been very effective,” Roushar said. “He gets in between and he starts to become a little bit more reactionary than actionary, and we’re not getting the results we look for from him nor anyone else.”

What about Benedet, whom Roushar didn’t know a thing about when he took the job?

“There’s a lot of things to really like about Theo,” Roushar said. “He’s had probably as much improvement as any player we have in the group. With that, there’s a lot of things for him to improve on and he knows that and we’ve got to work on it. He is working his tail off. He has put himself in a position to go compete for a job somewhere in this group.”

None of this clears up who the Week 1 starter will be. Jones might make the most sense simply because of his experience, but that’s just one observer’s take. And in order to keep the job, he’d have to play at an improved level.

“We have to have somebody established to be clearly better,” Roushar said. “And that’s what we’re working for.”

The hope is it becomes patently obvious. The Bears wanted an easily distinguishable winner in their quarterback competition between Mitch Trubisky and Nick Foles in 2020. Both performed that summer and preseason as if they should be the backup. Trubisky was named the starter, and that lasted until halftime of the Week 3 game in Atlanta.

Right now the left tackle picture is ashy. Maybe this process will produce a starter with more staying power.

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