Health Situation Looks No Better This Week for Bears
If the Bears are making strides toward getting back to health, Thursday's injury report failed to show it.
Although backup safety Deon Bush was removed from the Reserve/COVID-19 list, the rest of the wounded or ill remained the same.
In fact, they may actually be worse than before the last game.
Running back David Montgomery remains in the concussion protocol and missed practice.
The running back situation is difficult because behind Montgomery are players who are either not real running backs like Cordarrelle Patterson, or who haven't played much like Ryan Nall and Artavis Pierce. And then there's Lamar Miller, a seasoned veteran from years with Houston and Miami, who is coming off a torn ACL and has been with the Bears practice squad a month.
"And so now here's a situation where with David being out and being in the concussion protocol, we'll see, I think we'll rely on our coaches," Nagy said. "They're (the backs) all a little bit different.
"They have one guy that has experience in Lamar Miller that's seen a lot of different defenses and has been in a lot of different NFL games and been to the Pro Bowl. You have another who is a rookie. And then you have another guy who's worked hard as a free agent to get to this point and is only growing more and more each week. It's kind of, for us, a situation where we just rely on each other as coaches to figure out what's best for our offense."
Then again, Montgomery could come back from the concussion. Allen Robinson had one on a Sunday and returned the following Sunday. Montgomery has one extra day that Robinson didn't have.
Beyond running back, the offensive line situation failed to improve and actually seem worse.
Center Cody Whitehair remains on Reserve/COVID-19 and Nagy offered no more on whether he has symptoms or is close to being back.
"I have no idea. I really don’t know," Nagy said. "I don't get into all the symptom stuff. I think what they're trying to do is between all those guys who have it, I just stay away from that.
"I don't get into that. I think he's doing pretty good, though."
Although tackle Jason Spriggs was cleared from the Reserve/COVID-19 list, he remained sidelined with a knee injury. He had suffered a knee injury against New Orleans and finished the game anyway, then suffered the COVID-19.
Reserve center Sam Mustipher missed practice with a knee injury as he did all last week. None of those three offensive linemen could play last week.
Tight end Cole Kmet missed practice with a groin injury, quarterback Mitchell Trubisky was out with a shoulder injury, nose tackle Jonathan Jenkins missed with an ankle injury and defensive back Sherrick McManis sat out with a hand injury.
Four Bears were able to practice on a limited basis, including wide receiver Allen Robinson with a knee injury, linebacker Roquan Smith with a back injury linebacker Barkevious Mingo with a shoulder injury and safety Tashaun Gipson with a foot injury.
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