Bears veteran Cruz knows how fellow injured WR Meredith feels
Injuries have limited Victor Cruz to just 21 games in the previous three seasons, so the veteran knows what fellow wideout Cam Meredith is dealing with.
The Bears' leading receiver last year suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in the third preseason game and has a long rehab ahead. Best-case scenario, Meredith may be back on the field next off-season for organized team activities in May.
"Just a lot of questions, I presume," Cruz said, when asked about Meredith's mindset. "Just a lot of uncertainty. Just thinking about your career and how it looks going forward. How you want to rehabilitate yourself. How that process is going to go as you meet with doctors and staff and things like that.
Cruz has spoken to Meredith and tried to impart some of the knowledge he's gained rehabbing a torn patellar tendon in his knee and multiple calf injuries.
"The most important part is this is mental," Cruz said. "Just making that mentally he stays involved, and he stays into it, into the rehab, into football, into whatever it takes because it's easy to waver and go off the beaten path, as you will when you're injured because you're not around - you're by yourself. But your family and your support system is the biggest thing that he's going to have around him."
In a nod to avoiding additional injuries, more than 20 Bears dressed but did not play in Thursday night's preseason finale.
Dealing with expectations:
More will be expected from wide receiver Kevin White with Cam Meredith out for the year, but the seventh overall pick in the 2015 draft says added pressure isn't anything new.
"I feel like there's always been pressure, ever since I got drafted," White said. "That's just a normal thing. Just block the outside noise and try to focus and do what I can do at a high level."
White missed his entire rookie season after having surgery to fix stress fractures in his shin. He caught 19 passes in the first four games last season before suffering season-ending leg fractures and a severe ankle sprain.
The waiting game:
Pro Bowl guard Kyle Long is expected back from last season's ankle surgery, but the timetable is vague.
"We're hopeful," coach John Fox said. "He's really day to day as far as coming off that ankle. So he'll just continue to rehab until medically he's cleared and we get him out practicing."
"Hopeful for the season opener?" Fox was asked.
"Yeah," he said.
Long has not yet been cleared for full-speed practice.
Difficult days ahead:
Seventh-year veteran wide receiver Victor Cruz has experienced the whole spectrum of emotions associated with NFL cutdown dates.
He was undrafted out of Massachusetts in 2010 but two years later went to the Pro Bowl. After three years of battling injuries, he's hoping to hang on with the Bears.
"It's the nature of the game," he said of Saturday's roster reduction that will reduce teams to 53. "It's a day that we all hate because you become friends and brothers with so many guys on this team. To know that some of them might not be here when the bullets are live, it's a tough game, and it's business that way."
Cruz says he's attempted to approach every year as he did hi first.
"My mindset is always like I'm fighting for a job," he said. "So I never get complacent, I never get easygoing in my position. I always want to have that chip on my shoulder like I'm fighting for a roster spot.
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