More Positives on Teven Jenkins

Bears coach Matt Eberflus said injured guard Teven Jenkins has been released from the hospital and is seeing more specialists after his scary neck injury.

The Bears apparently dodged one serious injury issue and hope to curtail or eliminate more.

Guard Teven Jenkins was released from the hospital after suffering a scary neck injury in Sunday's 25-20 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Coach Matt Eberflus on Monday said he had little in terms of details to reveal on Jenkins' condition beyond the fact he has been released.

"Just that it's encouraging with him and I don't really have much of an update from there but it is encouraging for him," Eberflus said. "We'll see where he is later today. He's seen a couple specialists and stuff, just to double-check and crosscheck and everything but we'll see later today."

There is no word yet on whether Jenkins will be able to play again in any or all of the final three games.

One player they do need to approach medically with an eye on the future is quarterback Justin Fields. He suffered from leg cramps and left the game Sunday on a third-and-14 play after he had scrambled for 18 yards and a first down but had the gain negated by a holding call on tackle Riley Reiff. Nathan Peterman came on and threw an incompletion to Nsimba Webster, then Fields returned after getting an IV to address the cramps.

Losing Fields then was big because he had just gained 18 on a scramble and makes their third-down attack all the more dangerous. By the time the Bears had punted and then got the ball back, the Bears had gone from a 17-13 deficit to 25-13 with only 4 1/2 minutes to play.

"That was a little stressful," Eberflus intentionally understated.

A pregame IV and better monitoring of Fields' condition is likely to result from this situation. He had a similar circumstance in the Nov. 20 loss at Altanta but was getting his legs massaged.

"I think that you have to look at it," Eberflus said. "I think that the performance and the training staff get together with him and let's have a conversation and I know they've had those conversations. They've done a pretty good job of that and, again, it's happened a couple times.

"So he's just got to be mindful of it come up with a plan that's a good plan that works for him because his body is different than everybody else's body and it's also the conditions. The conditions are different. Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold. The weather was pretty cold yesterday so lets come up with a good plan."

It might even be something they plan to address a few days prior to the game, Eberflus said.

Among the other injury situations coming out of Sunday's loss was the ankle sprain to Jack Sanborn. They'll look at their rookie middle linebacker at Tuesday's practice or walk-through and see how he is.

With only three weeks remaining, if Sanborn's injury is a higher ankle sprain that requires several weeks to heal then he could miss the rest of the season on IR. If it's a run-of-the-mill sprain he could go day-to-day throughout the schedule.

Without Sanborn, the Bears put Joe Thomas on the field and the veteran special teams player made two big stops, including one vicious hit on quarterback Jalen Hurts in the open field.

"Joe Thomas came in there after Sanborn and I thought he did an excellent job of stepping into that role," Eberflus said. "Again, he hasn't had a lot of time on task in that role. He has been mostly a SAM (strong side) linebacker and working on special teams and doing a good job there, as well."

Thomas has played the position a few times in the league during his eight seasons, like in 2015 with Green Bay when he started seven games at inside linebacker.

"I thought he made a couple nice real good tackles, put his hitting on display, which I’m always impressed with guys who like to hit," Eberflus said.

The other injury situation is running back Khalil Herbert, whose window for return from injured reserve can begin this week. It seems likely he'll come right off IR to play Saturday.

"He is cleared, ready to go," Eberflus said. "Like we said last week, he's got all his speeds. He's been cutting he's been moving. He looks good. He looks great. We're excited about his return."

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