Bears Close to Full Health as Preparation for Titans Begins

Kevin Byard, Zacch Pickens and Ryan Bates should be ready to go by the start of the regular season according to Matt Eberflus.

Velus Jones Jr. is a threat out of the backfield and at receiver, coach Matt Eberflus said. So the Bears kept him on the roster. / Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

The most important thing Bears coach Matt Eberflus said as he met with reporters Wednesday after Tuesday cuts had nothing to do with the roster per se.

It was that no one is injured.

"Doesn't look like it right now, but we'll see," Eberflus said.

The Bears are at full health heading into the first week of the season. Or at least they were back on the practice field in some form or other. Not all of them are resuming full practices yet, but safety Kevin Byard, center/guard Ryan Bates and defensive tackle Zacch Pickens did individual work at practice even though they didn't participate in team practice. This is usually a prelude to returning.

Eberflus, GM Ryan Poles and the staff made the tough decisions on cutdown day. The Bears coach talked about Velus Jones being retained and a few other situations.

"He made it just by his efforts and the production he had in practice," Eberflus said.

Jones took a crash course in how to be a running back and showed in the preseason he could do it as a gadget player.

"I commend the coaches for doing a wonderful job in that—Chad (Morton) and Jennifer (King) and Chris (Morgan) and Shane (Waldron) are all the guys that had to work with him and be able to help him be successful," Eberflus said. "He partnered up with those guys."

The view is this type of player will cause headaches for opponents in addition to posing a breakaway threat, although in the past Jones has caused headaches for his own team with mistakes like muffed punts, dropped passes and penalties.

"So he's gonna be a guy for us that we can use him multiple ways," Eberflus said. "We can use him in the backfield. We can spread him out. We can do a lot of different things with him and that's to me a benefit. To try to defend that when he comes in the game is a little bit different than just a normal type of receiver, or a guy that can line up in the backfield. I think it creates a little bit of time-on-task practice-wise for the opponent and also preparation-wise in the film study."

Rookie defensive end Austin Booker is another player whose role is not yet entirely defined, especially considering they kept Dominique Robinson and Daniel Hardy as backup edge players and also have injured Jake Martin designated to return.

"Yeah, I mean you're talking about a rookie, a defensive lineman that's a rookie, so we're still in the development phase of that and we feel really good where he is in terms of a pass rusher," Ebeflus said. "We've seen that in the preseason. And then really working on his game to be an every-down end where he can play the run, set the edges that we ask and do the things that we want him to do in terms of playing run defense on first and second.

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"So we're still going through that process. We feel really good about where our ends are. We have some additions as you guys know. And we’ll evaluate that as we go through the week."

It will be a flexible situation for Booker based on progress.

"I mean, we'll define his role," Eberflus said. "He'll have role responsibility there and if he can do all things, which we want him to do, he will do that. And if he's a little bit developing in a certain phase of it, then we'll just back him down in that particular department. But we're always gonna evaluate that and push him to be an every-down end."

The most important rookie on the roster is, of course, Caleb Williams. Eberflus seemed more concerned about how Williams will handle his second game than the first, and it had nothing to do with the opponent.

"So after the first game, because the first game is abnormal, because you've got a lot of time to prepare, so it's not really a normal NFL week, but after that first game, being able to reset, right?" Eberflus said. "Whatever happened, look at the performance and go ahead and self reflect. Meet with me, meet with Shane. What can I improve on? What did I do well?

"Then able to reset and go to the next week. That's the biggest part that you have to do in the NFL. It happens fast. You don't have time to, you know, you've got time to reflect a little bit but then you've got to move onto the next week, go onto Tuesday and then through that normal week which will be the second week."

Their next to last practice before game week featured numerous different offensive line combinations looking at backups. Center Doug Kramer played at left guard and Matt Pryor played some there, as well.

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