Final Injury Report: Akiem Hicks Ruled Out

Akiem Hicks will miss what could be his final game with the Bears as he failed to practice all week and was ruled out on the season's final injury report for Sunday's Week 18 game at Minnesota.

The 32-year-old defensive end is a free agent after this season and has made comments over the last month indicating he thinks the team will not sign him back for his 11th NFL season. He has been with the Bears for six seasons. Hicks will be missing his eighth game of the season due to injury or illness. He also missed 11 in 2019 and one last year.

Hicks has 31 sacks and 51 tackles for loss in his six Bears seasons, to go with 247 tackles.

"He did a lot of good things as far as affecting different offenses," coach Matt Nagy said. "He creates a lot of double-teams (blocks) and I thought he did a good job of doing that his whole career here."

Nagy said the injury is the same ankle injury he suffered against Pittsburgh on Nov. 8.

It was by far the most productive time of his career. He had his career highs of 8 1/2 sacks and 15 tackles for loss in 2017 with the Bears and from 2016-2018 he made 23 sacks.

Listed as questionable for the Bears for the game are edge rusher Robert Quinn (shoulder), nose tackle Eddie Goldman (finger) and slot cornerback Duke Shelley (heel). All three practiced in full the last two days and should be fine to play. Quinn was the only one of them to miss a practice this week and that was on Wednesday.

The Bears will need to come up with an alternative at punt returner for the finale after putting Jakeem Grant on injured reserve due to an ankle injury. They have used Damiere Byrd in this capacity a few times in the past.

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