One Player Leaves and Another Returns

If anyone can give Bears rookie tackle Teven Jenkins advice on how to handle his down time following Wednesday's back surgery, it's right guard James Daniels.

Daniels has missed more time than he cares to think about now because of last year's Week 5 pectoral muscle tear against Tampa Bay in a 20-19 Bears win, and then at training camp the last two weeks following a quad injury.

On the day the Bears found they had lost their second-round draft pick on the offensive line for a long time, another has returned with the real capability of elevating their productivity.

Daniels already had some words of advice for Jenkins, who may or may not be back this year.

"I told him the same thing people last year told me: The good news for Teven, he's young and he still has so much time to develop and grow into a very great player," Daniels said. "I don't know the details of his surgery but, I mean, if he misses a full season or not, the good news is he has the full offseason, just like next year, and same thing like I did—I got hurt early enough where right after the season ended last year I was full-go for everything else."

By that Daniels means Jenkins should be able to go right into offseason conditioning without worrying first about rehabbing his injury.

"That's the good news for Teven," Daniels said. "He's going to come back stronger and better than what he was."

Ryan Pace has completely ignored the T position for the 6 drafts prior to the 2021 draft. And that has resulted in the #Bears having the worst T group in the league. 100% unacceptable
— TW (@Tylow237) August 18, 2021

Coach Matt Nagy is trying to see the positive side of it.

"Starting today, Teven is on his plan and we're on our plan now moving forward at the left tackle position," Nagy said. "So this is one of those deals where you got to be able to roll with the punches and you got to be able to accept news when it comes a certain way. That's all we're going to do.

"It's going to give somebody else an opportunity. You never know, maybe we look back at this and somebody has a great shot or opportunity of turning this situation at left tackle into something positive."

At the point when Daniels' path split off from the rest of the team last season, he thought the Bears were rolling.

"It was tough at first," Daniels said. "I mean, right when I got hurt, like, I thought I was hurt. So I went to the locker room. I went to put on a shoulder brace and come out and play, but then the doctor was like, 'you tore your pec.' Then I was sad for probably like a week.

"I had my surgery. I was in pain the entire time I was in my sling. That was awful. But when I was hurt, I started realizing and appreciating the situation I had. I live alone, so my mom came here to live with me because I couldn't drive, I couldn't do anything. And so she lived with me, which was really nice. I got to spend time with my mom, I got to spend time with my cat, with my girlfriend."

Still, he'd obviously rather have been spending it at Halas Hall. He even had to stop going there last year to rehab and condition due to a false-positive COVID-19 scare.

"I felt like the offensive line was playing good, offense was doing good, defense was playing well. I mean, we beat the Super Bowl champs the last game I played, so I mean I felt like we were playing really well when that (injury) happened," Daniels said.

Now the line he fits back into is in a constant state of flux. Elijah Wilkinson seems to have settled back in at left tackle after coming back from his own COVID-19 scare. Coach Matt Nagy anticipates newly signed tackle Jason Peters will be at Halas Hall on Thursday and should be competing going forward when practice resumes for the third preseason game.

Right tackle Germain Ifedi hasn't practiced all camp due to a hip-flexor injury and Lachavious Simmons or Alex Bars are manning the spot until he returns.

Daniels feels he'll fit right back in where he left off a few weeks ago.

"I mean, I got a lot of good work in during OTAs and I think I missed this year, I can't remember how many practices I did, but I got good camp practices before I missed practice and I got OTAs," Daniels said. "So I felt like I got a decent amount of work so far this year. I got more work this year than I did last year, because there was no OTAs (in 2020). We had that introductory period in camp last year. I believe our first practice was probably like, our first time in pads was like August 10th or 12th, around there. So this year I got way more work than last year, which has been good."

Players on the line always stress the need for the line to practice and play together to build a cohesive unit but Daniels thinks it shouldn't take much time to return and fit right into the mix.

"Like, five minutes," he said, to laughter. "Coach Juan (Castillo) is teaching the technique the same. He's teaching all the tackles the same, all the guards the same, the centers. So if the teaching technique is consistent throughout, it's pretty easy.

:So you don't need much time with your tackle or your center. And we spend so much time (together). We're in meetings for five hours days, we're at practice, we lift with each other. We're spending seven, eight, nine hours with each other and so that builds camaraderie. So you know that they're thinking the exact same way that you're thinking when you're out there on the field."

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