Banged up Bears facing important division test
It is far too early in the 2019 NFL season for a 2-1 football team like the Chicago Bears or Minnesota Vikings to face a “must-win” situation.
However, with both teams facing the possibility of falling to 0-2 in the division, a fate even more debilitating to the Bears than the Vikes since they would be 0-2 in the division at home while Minnesota would be 0-2 on the road, there is no disputing this is a really big game.
Just one more reason that it's not a great time for Matt Nagy to be staring at one of the most difficult challenges that comes with his job for arguably the first time.
In 2017, the year before Nagy arrived the Bears were the NFL's second most injured team losing 118 player games to injury and last year in Nagy's maiden voyage the Bears were the league's third healthiest team losing just 37 player appearances to poor health, all according to footballoutsiders.com.
Granted, not having Mitch Trubisky for two games, Khalil Mack for two games and having him play hurt in two more, Allen Robinson for three games, Kyle Long for eight games and Eddie Jackson for two games plus the Wild Card game was a challenge.
But there were only two games all year in which Nagy was without more than one of those players, the Bills game when Long, Robinson and Mack were all out and the Jets a week earlier that they played without Robinson and Mack.
And it is worth noting the Jets were 3-4 at the time and would finish 4-11 and the Bills were just 2-6 before finishing 6-10.
Fresh off his three touchdown performance against Washington Taylor Gabriel has already been ruled out versus the Vikings with a concussion and starting five-technique Bilal Nichols will miss his second straight game with a broken hand.
In addition to that Eddy Pineiro had just limited participation Friday after not practicing all week with his knee pinched nerve issue, and Akiem Hicks and Long have failed to practice all week with a knee and a hip respectively.
Experience and my gut tell me Pineiro will go against the Vikings and he did do fine kicking with the injury last Monday night, but that same gut tells me the best course of action will be sitting Hicks, and Long right now is anybody's guess.
The concern is obvious.
The Vikings best and possibly only road to doing damage to the Bears defense is with the game's leading running back, Dalvin Cook and trying to stop him without two of your three starting linemen, or even if Hicks goes at 60% or 70% capacity is a daunting challenge.
On offense the best way to attack the Vikings and arguably the best way to raise Trubisky's level of play is with a strong ground game and while he hasn't played to it the first three weeks — has he been playing hurt? — Long is still the Bears best offensive lineman.
There is also a calculus that comes with Hicks. Since they can probably handle Oakland without him and then there's the bye, is it best getting him 3½ or 4 full weeks rest now than risking have it bother him all season long?
I asked Nagy Friday if there is anything he can think of the Bears have done differently this year to keep guys healthy, or if at the end of the day the whole issue of good health is at the whims of the football Gods?
“I think it's the football stuff.
“I really feel like our silos of our training room, our strength and our nutrition with Jen Gibson, they do a great job. They understand how important it is to make sure that we collaborate to try to stay ahead as much as you can as some guys.
“To be honest, last year was a pretty clean year with injuries. And that's coming off of what it was previously, that was a good thing.
“We know it's never going to always be that way, so we're hitting a little bit of that early here.”
The huge challenge for Nagy Sunday is can they overcome it?
• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.