Bear Digest

Tremaine Edmunds' return from IR means a full Bears linebacker group

The Bears have been playing without as many as all three starting linebackers but now all of them are back healthy with the return Friday of Tremaine Edmunds from IR.
Gene Chamberlain|
Tremaine Edmunds gives chase to Tanner Hudson in the Bears' win over Cincinnati.
Tremaine Edmunds gives chase to Tanner Hudson in the Bears' win over Cincinnati. | Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The Bears reportedly plan to activate Tremaine Edmunds from injured reserve on Saturday, bringing back one of their key defensive players against both the run and pass to face the Packers in Saturday night's game for first in the NFC North.

They have up until 3 p.m. to make such a move but Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reported Friday this is their intent.

Edmunds had missed four straight games with a groin injury but had a full practice Thursday and was reported by the team to have limited practice availability Tuesday and Wednesday. He was listed as questionable for the game, nevertheless.

"He was playing tremendous football before the injury," coach Ben Johnson  said. "He is a huge asset in coverage just because of how long he is. It's hard to get the ball around him when we're playing zone.

"I think he's really good in our match and in man where he can  match up on tight ends and running backs out of the backfield and do a really good job there."

Johnson saw a good reason why Edmunds matches up well for this opponent.

"Josh Jacobs is a heck of a pass catcher," Johnson said of the Packers running back. "He probably doesn't get enough credit for that part of his game. That's something that we need to do a good job taking care of. Tremaine potentially could really help us in that regard.”

Edmunds had four interceptions when he went down with the injury. There are only five players in the league with more interceptions.

This defense is making good use of his skills by letting him play weakside linebacker rather than only middle linebacker as he had under Matt Eberflus. He and T.J. Edwards began mixing up the assignments between weak and middle before camp in OTAs.

“The initial thought in the springtime was for them to learn the defense—I'm talking about all the linebackers," Johnson said. "But you start with Tremaine and T.J.

"The idea was to mix both of them between Mike and Will. And that was for them to just gain a greater understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. That was challenging for them. I think you could ask both those guys and they might not have really appreciated it at the time because it slows them down as players when you're doing double duty."

Neverthess, they stuck with it and it paid off.

"But I think that approach was the right thing to do," Johnson said. "We've done that with a number of players on this team where it's more drink-out-of-a-fire-hose as we're trying to learn schematically what we're capable of doing.

"There was a comfort level I think with Tremaine being at Mike (LB), that's just where he had been his entire career. Yet we said in the springtime, his best spot might be at that Will linebacker position. I think that's kind of come to light for us as we've gone through the season."

Linebacker switch worked

The switch put Edmunds closer to the line more often than before, which seems to have helped, but even the Bears are a bit surprised how it worked out.

"I can't put my finger on what exactly triggers that, but he's taken a liking to it  and he's playing really fast, really decisive," Johnson said. "He's playing physical football where he was before the injury and hopefully we can continue to get that when we get him back.”

The Bears were without both Edmunds and Edwards after Edmunds suffered his injury and went out following the win over the Vikings Nov. 16. Edwards went out Nov. 2 against Cincinnati and didn't come back until the loss at Green Bay Dec. 7. Earlier, the Bears were without Edwards from Week 3 until they faced Washington in Week 6.

They also were without starting strongside linebacker Noah Sewell, for a stretch but he is now healthy.

In the meantime, they leaned on D’Marco Jackson and last week he was  NFC defensive player of the week.

The Bears defense found ways to stay in games and win them even without as many as seven starters at times.

"It's challenging," defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said. "I think every year you deal with that in some form or fashion, some years more than others. I think the big thing is each and every week is a new week. It's trying to create a meal with what are the ingredients that we have. Then we'll figure out what the meal's going to be.

"That’s what we've had to do there. You try to find out what are the skillsets of the players that you have available to you, try to put them in positions to be able to do the things that they do well try to minimize the times that you ask them to do things that maybe they're not as good at."

Now they're as close to fully healty as they might be the rest of the season. Only defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo and slot cornerback Kyler Gordon are missing.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.