Chicago Bears' Cutler ready to take on the unknown

The Bears' offense and quarterback Jay Cutler face a lot of unknowns as they draw nearer to Sunday's season opener against the Green Bay Packers.

Cutler's top three wide receivers — Alshon Jeffery, Eddie Royal and Marquess Wilson — still were limited at practice Thursday. And Pro Bowl go-to guy Jeffery seems the most questionable of the group.

Factor in that two-time Pro Bowl right guard Kyle Long, the team's best offensive lineman, is expected to play right tackle for the first time in a game.

And there's even more fear of the unknown.

The Long move also would mean Vlad Ducasse starts at right guard, and Sunday would be the first time Ducasse has played in a game with the other O-line starters.

“We'll see who lines up for us on Sunday,” Cutler said, not exactly inspiring confidence. “We're optimistic, but you never know what's going to happen in the next several days.

“We've had a good couple days of practice. We'll see how we finish the week.”

Jeffery missed nearly a month of practices before he returned Wednesday, and he didn't play in any of the preseason games.

If Jeffery doesn't play, or if he and Cutler aren't on the same page from the get-go, it takes away a vital component of the offense. It also leads to questions about how in sync the unit as a whole will be.

On the positive side, Jeffery and Cutler are hardly strangers. The 6-foot-3 wideout has caught a total of 174 passes for 2,554 yards and 17 touchdowns over the past two seasons, mostly with Cutler as his quarterback.

“We've been playing together, this is going on my fourth year,” Jeffery said. “I think we've got pretty good chemistry.”

But there's a difficulty factor this year in that they're both operating in a new offense under coordinator Adam Gase.

“(Learning) the offense was pretty tough at the beginning,” Jeffery said. “I was doing a lot of studying. But now I understand what we're doing and the places we're trying to put guys. It's all coming together.”

It remains to be seen if Jeffery can seamlessly take what he has learned in the classroom and turn it into production on the field, although Cutler believes he will.

“I think he had a pretty good idea that it was going to take a little bit of time with this (calf) injury,” Cutler said. “He's been right there in meetings, and he's stayed on it, so I don't think that's going to be a problem for him.”

As for the last-minute offensive line shuffling, it will be tested by a Packers defense that brings pressure from multiple directions and from elite pass rushers such as Clay Matthews and Julius Peppers.

The last time Long lined up at right tackle was during OTAs in June.

“That was the one good thing about OTAs,” Gase said. “Everybody complains about having OTAs, that they're not valuable.

“That might have been the only time we actually had all of our guys out there at the same time. Hopefully a little bit of that carries over.”

Cutler has no doubt Long will hold up his end at tackle.

“He's an athletic freak,” Cutler. “There are going to be some growing pains just like anybody else, but he'll be fine.

“There are always going to be concerns. There are concerns across the board, myself included.

“It's a new offense, new verbiage. So we're going to have growing pains as we go. But I know Kyle's going to do everything possible in his role to be successful.”

Cutler and Long have developed a strong bond, which the quarterback was asked to explain.

“It's important to him,” Cutler said. “He's out here, he's trying to do the best he possibly can, and he takes this seriously.

“Anybody that takes it that seriously — and there's a lot of guys like that on the team — you're going to be fond of.”

If you're venturing into the unknown, it's best to have a 6-foot-6, 328-pound “athletic freak” leading the way.

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