Roquan Smith Joins the Wounded

The injury report didn't necessarily get a lot better on Saturday for the Bears, it just looked different.

A day after he made the defensive play of training camp by picking off a Justin Fields shovel pass, linebacker Roquan Smith was on the sidelines due to a groin strain, joining a long list of injured Bears.

Nagy confirmed a concussion suffered by tackle/guard Lachavious Simmons on Friday, and said a few players who had been injured, like wide receiver Damiere Byrd, cornerback Michael Joseph (hamstring), edge rusher Robert Quinn (back), tackle Badara Traore (knee), cornerback Desmond Trufant (thigh) and running back Artavis Pierce (hamstring) would be back practicing to varying degrees.

The Bears gave some practice time off to veterans Jimmy Graham, Akiem Hicks, Khalil Mack and Danny Trevathan on Saturday, although they were on the field for individual work. The injuries to all the offensive linemen kept them sidelined.

The starting defense is without Smith, Eddie Jackson (hamstring), Tashaun Gipson (groin) and Eddie Goldman (COVID list).

But enough of the injury news. The real buzz was still about Smith and how he burst threw and picked off the shovel pass. When it happened, Fields gave chase but didn't tackle him.

"Yeah, so Ro made a good play," coach Matt Nagy admitted. "He just shot up the middle, came unblocked up the middle. It was a little shovel pass. Right now, we're just experimenting with things. He made a good play. There's not much Justin (could do), you know? That's a hard one, a shovel pass and expect a guy to shoot up the gap like that.

"Then Roquan to catch it, run. We joked around showing it to the whole team the highlights in practice, we were teasing whether Justin was going to bring Roquan down."

Nagy seemed certain it would have happened if it had been a game, but considering it was Smith charging like a rhino with the ball in practice, he had better advice for his rookie quarterback:

"Yeah, stay away," Nagy said.

Doug Pederson's visit to camp

Nagy has had good friend Doug Pederson visiting camp the last two days and the former Eagles coach was on the sidelines both days wearing Bears clothing.

"He told me, this is the first time in 34 years he hasn't been in football," Nagy said. "That's crazy in a lot of ways. So now, it allows him to get the juice going and be around football. I'm sure it won't be the only camp that he shows up at."

The Bears lost the 2018 playoff game to Pederson's team a year after the Eagles won the Super Bowl and just four seasons later it only shows how temporary the NFL—as in Not For Long—can be. Nagy was with Pederson on the Eagles staff under Andy Reid and the Kansas City staff.

Nagy loves talking football with Pederson.

"Doug and I, not only were we on the same staff, but we were hip-by-hip, hand-by-hand for every practice for six years in the world we were in," Nagy said. "Then he goes to Philadelphia as a head coach, I go to Kansas City and I come here.

"So there's been that separation. So it's nice to say, hey, when you went to Philadelphia, what did you change from Kansas City? What did I change? And then you talk through the whys of it. And then of course every now and then we bounce some plays off each other.

"We're still a little bit pissed off of the fact of what he did in 2018 coming in here (for the playoffs) like that."

Breaking the Bucket

Incredibly, new Bears linebacker Alec Ogletree made his fifth interception in three days at Saturday's practice, and this one, like two of the others, was in a scrimmage. Andy Dalton's pass to Jesse James popped out of the tight end's hands and into the air and Ogletree plucked it.

Ogletree got extended playing time with the first team because of Smith's groin injury, Christian Jones being on the Reserve/COVID-19 list, Josh Woods being sidelined with a quad injury and linebacker Joel Iyiegbuniwe coming back slowly from a hamstring injury had opened up the chance for a new linebacker to play with starters.

Ogletree is giving the Bears' so-called "Takeaway Bucket" a real workout.

Defensive coordinator Sean Desai came up with the blue takeaway bucket, which was essentially a blue plastic tub on wheels.

Players were doing fancy dunks of the ball in it after turnovers so they came up with an actual large bucket attached to a mini-basketball hoop instead of the blue tub. Saturday, they were back to using the original blue tub while the hoop sat quietly on the sidelines.

"We did the basketball bin and we broke it before we even got to give it a try," second-year edge rusher Trevis Gipson said. "So they put the blue bin back out there and that's a lot more durable and it's a bigger (dunking area."

The guilty party who broke it?

"The defense. The defense broke it," Gipson said.

Gipson wasn't giving up any teammate.

"Our coach just had us take a couple practice dunks. And by the end of the practice dunks, it was broke," he said, sounding like someone's kid after the ball went through a window.

Connections and Safeties

Wide receiver Rodney Adams continues showing up with big plays, beating the current first-team safety tandem of Deon Bush and DeAndre Houston-Carson deep for a touchdown on a perfect throw from Justin Fields during seven-on-seven. ... The defense had plenty to celebrate besides several interceptions. The offense was trying to move it from the shadow of its own goal line and on successive plays the first-team defense swarmed running back Khalil Herbert for a safety, then got the whistle to blow for a sack against Fields. A few plays later they tackled Herbert for yet another safety. ... Michael Joseph came back from his hamstring injury to make an interception. ... Several social media posts saying Fields has been playing with first team over the past few days at times have been entirely incorrect. Fields did get a play Friday with first-team linemen on the field but not receivers. He also had some plays Saturday with a few first-team receivers available, but it was more an instance of players being subbed in with different packages and not a full first team.

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