Joy of Football for Bears Overshadows Ticking Clock

Forget the new normal.

Akiem Hicks feels really normal again and the rest of the Bears do, as well.

Putting on pads and hitting brought a general feeling of well being to Halas Hall even as coach Matt Nagy wore a mask Monday all the way through practice. Forget the offseason of virtual meetings⁠—real football has returned.

Now it's a simple matter of dealing with a lack of time to be ready for the Sept. 13 opener in Detroit.

"For all the guys, that have a real passion for football or a real love for football and have been doing this their entire lives, this whole situation has put us out of whack," said Hicks, the Bears' defensive line leader. "Coming back to football has given us a sense of regularity.

"It does feel good to be back out there and it does feel like football again."

Even with players going through social distancing to the extreme in meetings that are held in the spacious Payton Center practice facility instead of small meeting rooms, regularity of routine makes for comfort.

Even getting knocked backward by a block from a 300-pound lineman doesn't detract from it, Hicks said.

"Being around the guys and being around the football facility just makes it that much easier," Hicks said. "You find your groove again. It just becomes natural. It feels natural.

"We have a lot of precautions and things going on around here to make sure we're safe as we can be. After you get past all that, it turns into a regular day—a regular day of just preparation for your season."

The hitting aspect of it is new for now, but overall practice and taking precautions at Halas Hall is becoming old.

"We're in the third week of it," safety Eddie Jackson said. "So everything is just going well. It's probably more normal now."

Nagy warned it can't become so old they become lackadaisical about it.

The question now isn't getting used to anything but getting everything pointed toward the opener. It's especially true on offense because of the quarterback battle. Nagy said he will take that out as long as possible to decide a winner.

He and assistants are being resourceful trying to squeeze as much out of field time as possible to get more repetitions into practices, which start out at 90 minutes and gradually expand.

"Let's say that it's a 20-minute period; we're going to try to get at least 30 plays in there," Nagy said. "I thought our tempo in and out (of the huddle) for the first time putting pads on was OK."

The time element is great for coaches, but Hicks pointed out something about the plight facing every team with their schedules altered.

"I would say this: I think everybody's dealing with the same calendar," Hicks said. "Let's start with that. Every team's dealing with the same calendar. When we go to play another team, how we spent our days of practice and how they spent their days of practice is really gonna tell when we step on the field.

"I think that for us here, we're just trying to make sure that we execute and take advantage of all the time that we do have and not really look at it as a situation of 'Oh, I missed this' or 'I missed that.' Everybody’s starting on the same page and we just got to push to a point where we feel like we can dominate and get into that postseason."

Worrying about lack of sufficient time to prepare in the postseason would be far more fun for everyone than worrying about how it affects the regular season.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven