The Chicago Bears have a lot to sort out at the wide receiver position before the 2016 season begins. At least one of them is making their decision easier.

Head coach John Fox and GM Ryan Pace intentionally built the roster this year to foster competition. Why? Simple. They want to see which players accept the challenge and put in the work it takes to be great in the NFL. The best way for that to happen is when they fear for their job security. If they think they might not make a roster, some will go that extra mile to ensure they’re as well-prepared as possible to give them the best chances.

Sometimes that can mean doing extra work after practice. A lot of extra work as rookie 7th round pick Daniel Braverman is proving for the Bears.

“After his fellow rookies pile into the Bears’ shuttle for the ride from Halas Hall back to their hotel rooms, the seventh-round pick walks back out onto the field for more work. The wide receiver stands in front of the JUGS machine and catches 100 footballs at a time. It’s tedious, if not boring. But Braverman, who had 109 catches for 1,367 yards at Western Michigan last year, treats each extra session as the talisman that keeps failure a half-step away.”

This may sound insane to the casual fan but anybody who understands football is that the only way to get better is to work hard. It’s why Matt Forte was so great, it’s why Brian Urlacher was so great, it’s why Walter Payton was so great. Braverman stands a modest 5’10” in height. He doesn’t have all the physical traits teams look for in a wide receiver. Couple the fact he’s joining a receiving group that has a lot of fringe players who have enough merit to make the team such as Marquess Wilson, Cameron Meredith, Deonte Thompson and Marc Mariani it’s easy to see why the young man is so frantic and drive in his approach.

As it turns out this is nothing new. Braverman is emulating a similar approach that past great wide receivers embraced. Take Jerry Rice, the greatest ever as an example. His former head coach Steve Mariucci marveled at the mans’ work ethic.

“He would come out 45 minutes early. Sometimes he would work on covering kicks, returning punts, doing this, stretching, working on stance and starts, and catching. And then after practice, he would be out there running gassers.”

Or perhaps another Hall of Famer in Raymond Berry. Former teammate Bill Curry said that he would run an additional 50-75 pass patterns after practice in order to make sure he had everything down. If it was good enough for guys like them, then Daniel Braverman is smart enough to know it should be good enough for him too. One can bet this kid has been hearing all the comparisons of late to guys like Wes Welker.

That’s a lofty comparison and the only way he’s going to reach the same level is if he works just as hard, if not harder than Welker did. The Chicago Bears hope this mode of operation not only continues, but can infect the rest of the roster moving forward.