Bears Create Their Own Brand of Bubble at Halas Hall

The Bears won't become bubble boys because they believe they've created an alternative at least as effective.

The bubble has become a popular term for what the NBA has done in bringing all of its players to Orlando hotels for the playoffs, isolated from those who could spread COVID-19 to them.

At what no doubt would have been a large cost, the Bears opted against doing something similar. They could have rented out hotel space and kept all of their players there the way they did in Bourbonnais at a dorm room, except with more restrictions. Rookies and those trying to make the team already do stay at hotel near Halas Hall.

"I think we just took the parameters that the league and the union agreed upon and it came as no surprise to us that these were the circumstances and I think now we just basically keep on calling it our bubble," Bears GM Ryan Pace said. "We just try to create that environment here.

"The most at-risk I think we are is when everybody leaves Halas Hall at the end of day. It's not just the players–it's the staff, everybody. So, I think that goes back to educating our players and staff to don’t make selfish decisions when you leave here. You owe it to your counterparts and you owe it to your teammates to make the right decisions as we go through this season. The bubble was something was something that was never really talked about with us."

Of course, leaving their own "bubble" is when the biggest danger occurs. And the Bears are trying to solve this by educating players and family members.

This artificial bubble the Bears think they've established includes:

An athletic training room where rehab is done by appointment and taping tables are separated by plexiglass and partitions.

Plexiglass and partitions between urinals.

Showers spaced out by turning some off.

A team meeting room in the Walter Payton Center, their 120-yard indoor field.

Weight rooms in Halas Hall and the Payton Center so two groups can lift at once.

Spaced out lockers.

A revamped player dining room to keep them from sitting together in groups.

Temperature testing at a trailer outside Halas Hall, where COVID and antibody testing can also be done.

Doors that open automatically without being touched.

A thermal mirror facial recognition scanner at the building entrance to check for temperatures one more time. People with temperatures over 100.4 are not allowed inside.

Proximity readers for everyone which lets the team do contact tracing.

Any coronavirus test is sent to a lab in Minnesota and the turnaround on the testing has been within 24 hours.

"So, I'm pretty confident that we have a good plan in place, both here with the Bears and at the league level," said Bears head athletic trainer Andre Tucker, who acts as overseer for the team's COVID-19 operation.

Tucker said the recent Major League Baseball incident involving the Florida Marlins didn't scare him.

"One of the advantages we've had over the last few months is we've been able to watch other leagues," Tucker said. "We're all unique in our own ways, and I think we can learn from others' experiences. I think it's something we as a club and at the league level we closely watch."

Because of the importance of the quarterback position, some NFL teams discussed sequestering one or more of the backup quarterbacks to avoid risking infection to their entire quarterback room at once.

The Bears won't be shipping Tyler Bray or the loser of the Mitchell Trubisky-Nick Foles battle to some remote corner of Halas Hall.

"It's speculative right now with that, but I think one of the things that we've talked about, and Matt and I have talked about it, is just being smart with how we're handling certain position groups, specifically the third quarterback," Pace said. "We could be creative how we position him in different meeting rooms and not put him just with the quarterbacks. "

Separation is a good idea in this environment.

"We're creative with our lifting groups, separating positions so we don't have one group all lifting together," Tucker said. "There's been a lot of thought separating position groups sometimes just so you don't have everybody in close quarters."

It's the key, it seems, to everything they're doing.

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