Bear Digest

Bears Add Long Snapper to Let Cole Kmet Focus on His Own Job

Former Lions long snapper Jake McQuaide has been signed to the Bears practice squad to replace injured Scott Daly and let Cole Kmet avoid double duty.

Gene Chamberlain

Bears tight end Cole Kmet had to do the long-snapping Sunday in London after an injury to Scott Daly.
Bears tight end Cole Kmet had to do the long-snapping Sunday in London after an injury to Scott Daly. / Peter van den Berg-Imagn Images
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Bears tight end Cole Kmet will not need to endure another Sunday of double-duty stress as a long snapper.

That is, unless someone else is injured.

The Bears signed longtime NFL snapper Jake McQuaide to their practice squad along with former Bears practice squad player Jamree Kromah on Tuesday, while releasing defensive tackle Travis Bell from the practice squad.

Kmet had to long snap Sunday after Daly’s injury and never had to long-snap for a punt, only for field goals and PATs.

McQuaide’s signing could mean the knee injury suffered in Sunday’s game by long snapper Scott Daly is of the more severe type. The Bears had an MRI done on it Monday.

McQuaide, 36, is in his 14th season as a long snapper in a career that started out in 2011 with the St. Louis Rams. McQuaide was long snapper for the Rams in St. Louis and L.A. from 2011 through 2020. He was in Dallas for two seasons after that and last  year was the full-time replacement for Daly in Week 9 for Detroit after he had been injured in Week 6. Now it would appear he is replacing Daly again.

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Daly was only long-snapping because veteran Bears long snapper Patrick Scales suffered a back injury that required surgery. He can return to the roster at a later date.

Kromah, a defensive lineman from James Madison, had been with the Bears in training camp, was waived and put on the practice squad but New England signed him off of the Bears practice squad to its 53-man roster Sept. 18. They released him from the roster last week and he has returned now to Chicago’s practice squad.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.