Injuries Mean Rare Uncertainty in the Bears Secondary

Heading into the biggest week of the season so far for the Bears, they can't be certain what their secondary will look like against the Vikings

Duke Shelley's first effort at slot cornerback for the Bears went off without a hitch.

The Bears can't be sure how long he'll be at the position because there are too many injury variables going on in their secondary heading into their wild-card showdown game Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings.

Shelley played because of Buster Skrine's concussion suffered against Detroit. The Bears may need to proceed carefully with this as Skrine's concussion is the sixth he has suffered in the last eight NFL seasons, according to team injury reports compiled by official NFL stat partner Sportradar.

Skrine remains in the concussion protocol.

Skrine last had a concussion in 2018 with the Jets, which kept him out of Weeks 6 and 7. While with the Jets, concussions also caused him to miss Week 8 in 2017, Week 15 in 2016 and Week 6 in 2015. He also had one in 2013 with Cleveland and that one sidelined him three straight games.

"I don't care if he plays as long as he is healthy, and when he's healthy I'm still going to care about him the same," Bears defensive backs coach Deshea Townsend said. "That's my opinion with any of them; their health and safety is first, and this is a physical game, played by physical men. And he is one of those types of guys. He's a tough guy. He plays the game one way and that's why he's been so successful in his career."

Skrine has 66 tackles, his highest total for a single season since he had 67 in 2014 with Cleveland.

The Bears didn't have a player among their starting five in the secondary miss a game until last week when Skrine was hurt.

In his first significant action since coming into the NFL from Kansas State last year in the sixth round of the draft, Shelley made three tackles and recorded a pass defense as Skrine's replacement.

"He's been around for a little now so he's had a chance to learn by watching Buster play and watching other guys have the opportunity to play," Townsend said. "He's had to get his mental reps by learning from those guys and I thought he played hard especially. A guy that has seen it, that has heard the same corrections and he stepped in and played the way I thought he was capable of playing.

"He stuck his nose in there and he did a good job of leveraging coverage and that was kind of expected."

Fifth-round 2020 draft pick Kindle Vildor also played 14 snaps on defense and made two tackles a replacement after starting right cornerback Jaylon Johnson suffered a second-half shoulder injury and was able to only play 47 of the 66 defensive snaps.

Coach Matt Nagy was vague about the severity of Johnson's injury but said Johnson suffered his injury on the goal-line play when Deshaun Watson's third-quarter TD run was reversed by replay.

"So he went in there and made a big stop and it ended up helping us keep them out of the end zone," Nagy said of Johnson. "He's a tough kid. We've got to just stay on him, make sure we keep him healthy here and hopefully have him ready for this coming week."

Johnson has started every game and made 34 tackles along with 15 passes defensed. He is tied for fourth in the NFL in passes defensed, and leads all rookies.

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