Bears fight at Wednesday night practice disappoints Nagy; Whitehair injured
The Bears simulated a full mock game at Halas Hall on Wednesday night, pitting the starters vs. the reserves and bringing in everything from portable lights to a live DJ to, yes, the Bear raid siren.
The good news: the Bears won. Not so good: a scary fight broke out between right guard Kyle Long and backup defensive end Jalen Dalton and fellow starting guard Cody Whitehair exited early with a finger injury on his left hand.
We'll go first with the relatively good news - Matt Nagy saying after practice he thinks Whitehair will be OK. A Pro Bowl alternate who played every rep at center last season, Whitehair moved this off-season to left guard, where he has appeared natural throughout camp while working with the starters in practice from start to finish.
"I don't think he (broke it), but I'm not even sure to tell you the truth," Nagy said of Whitehair, who was spotted in street clothes on the far sideline near the end of practice. "But I'm pretty sure it's going to be fine, is what I'm told."
Also a positive: the Bears have strong interior offensive line depth with experienced utility backup Ted Larsen back for his second stint with the club and likely the first man up, and promising undrafted rookie Alex Bars waiting in the wings.
But the Long-Dalton fight - the third skirmish in as many practices for the Bears after a harmonious first two-plus weeks of camp - was anything but positive.
Long, who apparently took exception to a block by Dalton during an interception return on the previous series, went completely berserk, removing Dalton's helmet and connecting at least a few times in a wild sequence with Dalton doing very little retaliating.
"It's the competitive nature of the guys," Matt Nagy said. "Yesterday to me was a little bit more of a pillow fight. Today I thought was a little bit, just like I said, it's disappointing."
Long was forcibly removed from the middle of the field by tackle Charles Leno, but Leno had a hard time calming down his good friend, who went to the sideline to grab a seat and was quickly met by soft-spoken all-pro cornerback Kyle Fuller, who helped get Long under control.
The Bears' longest-tenured homegrown player and a three-time Pro Bowler, Long had been enjoying perhaps his best camp ever, if not at least the past three years, when he has been beset by one injury after another. But three days after a verbal spat with Akiem Hicks on getaway day in Bourbonnais, Long took his frustrations out on Dalton.
"We're more mature than that," Nagy said, adding that he'd soon be discussing the incident with both men. "I know that I personally expect more from us."
But Nagy had no explanation for the increased tensions and altercations over his team's past three practices.
"I don't have an answer for you. We talk about it as a team," he said. "I think at some point in time, we've got to prove that we're a mature team. We are - I've been saying it to you guys for a long time, we have a bunch of high-character people.
"That starts with us as coaches, making sure we lead these guys the right way. And we also make sure that, you know, they understand that that can't happen. It just can't happen. It's not going to happen."
The fight obscured an interesting scripted scrimmage that included an especially ferocious performance by the first-team defense with at least 6 interceptions of backup quarterbacks Chase Daniel and Tyler Bray, a couple of beautiful connections between Mitch Trubisky and Trey Burton and a bounce-back night in the kicking competition.
Preseason 2 hints?
Matt Nagy was asked whether the mock game, which is expected to be a singular event in this year's camp, would have an effect on his playtime plans for the second preseason game Friday night, against the New York Giants.
In typical Nagy fashion, he wasn't giving too much away, but his tone suggested we might not see much, if any at all, of the starters, who played only one series in the first exhibition game.
"They got a lot of reps out here tonight ... and I like that they got a lot of reps," Nagy said.