Bears Receive Clearance from League to Practice
There will be football practice Friday at Halas Hall, and presumably a game on Sunday in Nashville.
The Bears have been given clearance to continue practicing by the NFL and will have an afternoon practice, just an hour later than they normally have them even after a Thursday of disruption.
Practice on Thursday was canceled due to a COVID-19 test of positive from Cody Whitehair.
Bears officials haven't said it was a false positive or if there simply were no more cases of COVID-19, but are conducting practices.
The team is still under the league's intensive level of COVID-19 protocol, or double-secret probation as offensive coordinator Bill Lazor called it on Wednesday.
The big question facing the Bears Friday and on game day is whether they can assemble an offensive line capable of protecting Nick Foles and opening holes for running back David Montgomery.
Manning the positions will be a key, and much depends on whether center Sam Mustipher is able to practice after being unable to go due to a knee injury two straight days. Without Mustipher and without Whitehair, who has a calf injury besides testing positive for COVID-19, the Bears might be relying on any number of completely inexperienced players as a third center, including Alex Bars, Arlington Hambright or Lachavious Simmons.
The line as it's constituted will likely have Rashaad Coward at right tackle for injured Bobby Massie, who went on injured reserve with a knee sprain. They would play Bars at left guard, where Coward normally plays. Simmons or Hambright would be at right guard.
Another option could be Eric Kush, who was a Bears player two years ago, went to Cleveland and wasn't signed by the Browns after the season. He had a visit to Halas Hall and could sign with the Bears. It would be very unusual to say the least, if a player came in off the street to play without practicing, even if he did know the offense from two years ago.
The line shuttle is anything but ideal, but offensive coordinator Bill Lazor recalled at one of his earlier stops how he had to bring on emergency backups and put them on the field successfully.
"I can think of taking an interior guy and moving him out to tackle and bringing in a retired player to play tackle," Lazor said. "The difference was just that they were veteran players.
"Maybe they were way out of position, I guess you could say, or just coming off the couch, but they were veterans so that was a little bit different. This might be a little unique. We'll see. Anyway, that one ended up being a great story. We went 2-0 with those guys. We'll make this a good story too."
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