Rash of Bears Injuries Ends for Now

Sunday's practice was the first time Matt Nagy reported no new injuries since training camp began.

Matt Nagy almost sounded like he considered Sunday a victory.

They had no more players to add to the injury report. None of those hurt came back, but at least he could say they were floating rather than sinking.

The major concern remains at offensive tackle, where five players are sidelined: Teven Jenkins (back), Larry Borom (concussion), Lachavious Simmons (concussion), Elijah Wilkinson (reserve/COVID-19 list) and Germain Ifedi (hip-flexor).

"I think it's stating the obvious that when you have a competition at a big position like that at left tackle, you want to make sure you have a lot of guys out there being able to show what they can do," Nagy said. "But at the same point and time, I think what happens, if you start getting into a panic mode—there's a lot of other teams that are going through some similar situations.

"And I think it's all about how you handle it, and understand that as long as what you try to do today to get them better, a little bit better, and then when the time comes, as I've been saying this training camp, it'll all work itself out. And I really believe that."

The injury situation on the offensive line has become dire. They're also without James Daniels (quad) and because of the tackle situation Sunday they had to put Alex Bars at starting right tackle. This left a hole at right guard and second-year guard/center Dieter Eiselen had the opportunity to line up with starters. He is the South African rugby player and weight lifter who played football at Yale after teaching himself the sport.

Arlington Hambright played left tackle with the first team.

In typical positive Nagy fashion, he found the ray of sunshine in all of these injuries.

"I do believe there are some guys that have taken advantage—and not so much taken advantage, but just have been able to show us the type of depth that we have," Nagy said. "Because it's a long season and your starters can go down during the year.

"This helps us, too, not so much evaluating who the starter is, but evaluating who the backup is. So that when something does happen during the year, who's the next guy that's gonna fill in and keep that thing going?"

The other positive bit of news for the Bears is they have Monday off while they wait for the Dolphins to come to town for practices Tuesday through Thursday prior to Saturday's first preseason game.

Upstairs or downstairs

Defensive coordinator Sean Desai hasn't called defenses yet in a game so he's going to use the preseason to test out something. Specifically, it's where he's going to be during games.

"Do you wanna be on the sideline or be up in the booth?" Nagy said. "He might end up trying both in the preseason and seeing what he likes."

Oops he did it again

It happened once again. For the sixth time in four Bears practices, recently acquired linebacker Alec Ogletree intercepted a pass. This was from Andy Dalton and came at the goal line in red zone 7-on-7.

Ogletree hasn't had a day when he failed to come up with an interception. He continues to get snaps with the first-team defense at times because Roquan Smith (groin), Josh Woods (groin) and Christian Jones (reserve/COVID) are all sidelined.

Hitting and more

The Bears ran a four-minute scrimmage with full contact and it got Akiem Hicks a chance to make a tackle for loss on a running play, resulting in one fan among the largest crowd at Halas Hall to date hollering his name so loud that it sounded like a bull horn had been used.

Justin Fields had possibly his best red zone work of camp. He had a stretch of six passes when three went into the end zone for TDs. Jesper Horsted made the best of those grabs and was belted by Jordan Lucas, but it was Lucas who was laying on the ground afterward while Horsted absorbed the hit. Lucas popped straight back up after a few seconds and was fine.

Andy Dalton might have had the camp's best TD pass, a perfectly timed toss to the corner Darnell Mooney caught over his shoulder without breaking stride or looking up for the ball, as DeAndre Houston-Carson provided tight coverage.

No waffling in Chicago

When Dazz Newsome told everyone he loved Waffle House in Chapel Hill, N.C. and he was shocked Chicago didn't have one, someone with corporate must have been listening.

"Yeah, they sent me a little care package," Newsome said. "There were shirts, hats, syrup, coffee, some mugs, that was about it."

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