Relax, It's Only Practice Say Bears
It was a day to wonder would the Bears really do it?
They had DJ Moore fielding punts on Monday. The Velus Jones punt return situation looks pretty bleak after his fumble and two botched punts in the opening preseason game, but enough so they need to put their top wide receiver back fielding the ball in a dangerous situation?
During the 2020 season, the career of Bears gadget back Tarik Cohen ended thanks to a play when he was fielding a punt and called fair catch.
It's not exactly a safe thing for the highest paid player on your team.
"Yeah, I mean, like I told you guys in the offseason, whichever receiver or DB that we have that's up on game day, if they have the ability to return punts, they're all gonna work on it," Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said. "He's been doing that for a while. Obviously you (media) weren't around in the offseason and like all of the Phase 2s and all of those different days, but he's been doing that. So he's done that before.
"It's not like it's a huge deal, like all of the sudden, 'Whoa, DJ's the guy at punt return.' It's not like that. It's just everybody’s working at this time."
Hightower pointed out Moore returned punts in college and he called it a case where Moore would be more of a backup doing it.
"Yeah, he wouldn’t be the starter there, but he's still gonna take practice reps," Hightower said. "Like he's gonna take reps just like all the other guys take reps to get better to work on their craft, so yeah, he wouldn't be our No. 1 option, no."
Moore returned 15 punts for a 10.2-yard average at Maryland. He also returned 15 kicks for a 22.3-yard average.
No one is saying he needs to return kicks for the Bears because Jones hasn't had a problem with this aspect of returns. However, they've been letting other players practice kick returns, as well.
"He's one of the best kickoff returners in the league, I think, everybody knows that," Hightower said. "His stats say that as well. So, we wanted to get a look at some other guys and see what they had and give other guys opportunities.
"Preseason is all about opportunities for guys to show what they have and see what they can do in order to make the football team and I tdshink in the kick return phase, I think Velus has shown how potent he can be. But we also want to put the ball in the end zone. We were really good on kickoff return last year but we still need a touchdown. That's a challenge to him going forward and to the unit, not just to him."
The Bears also appear in the mood for experimenting on offense, with Teven Jenkins suffering from a leg injury.
WSCR's Chris Emma reported they are using starting center Cody Whitehair at left guard in Jenkins' place.
Whitehair started at left guard the last 2 1/2 seasons. With Whitehair at center, they had Lucas Patrick at center. Both Whitehair and Patrick had been out with injuries last week but apparently are healthy.
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