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Roquan Smith is the future of the Chicago Bears defense, so when the stud linebacker was recently added to the team’s ever-growing injury report, more than a few eyebrows were raised.
Meeting with the media on August 7, Bears head coach Matt Nagy revealed Smith would miss time due to a groin injury that occurred in practice, but he was vague when asked about a possible timetable for the starting linebacker’s return.
“All those soft-tissue injuries like that, they’re all a little bit different,” Nagy said in response, adding: “They’re working through the timeline on that. I feel better than worse I would say with that, but they’re working through the whole timeline thing.”
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Bears Need Smith to Return Sooner Rather Than Later
Now entering his fourth season, Smith had the best year of his young career in 2020. He started all 16 games, netting 139 total tackles (98 solo, 18 for loss), two interceptions, four sacks, 6 quarterback hits, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. His coverage skills were also second to none, and he earned second-team All-Pro honors for his efforts.
Smith has been showing signs in training camp that 2021 will likely be more of the same. In one practice, just before his groin injury, Smith took a shovel pass from Justin Fields around 97-yards in the other direction.
“He just shot up the middle, came unblocked up the middle. It was a little shovel pass,” Nagy said about the play after practice. “He made a good play. That’s a hard one, a shovel pass and expect a guy to shoot up the gap like that. Then for Roquan to catch it, run. We joked around showing it to the whole team the highlights in practice, we were teasing whether Justin was going to bring Roquan down.”
Spoiler alert: the speedy Fields, fortunately, chose not to risk injury by running Smith down after the play.
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Bears Also Without All-Pro Eddie Jackson
With Smith down and out for an uncertain period of time, the Bears have their second core defensive player out with injury. All-Pro safety Eddie Jackson has been on the non-football injury (NFI) list since training camp began. Jackson injured his hamstring during a workout earlier this summer, and while Nagy hasn’t given a timeline for his return, the Bears coach did not seem too concerned about his missing practice, as Jackson has still been present and participating in team activities.
“I don’t know how soon he’ll be back, again with the timeline — we’ll get through that,” Nagy said on August 7 when he was asked about Jackson. “But he’s doing good. He’s out there every day at practice doing his stuff. He’s out there, the camaraderie of the team. It’s important to me. It’s important that he’s out there with these guys every day, whether it’s a walk-through, whether it’s practice, he’s holding a script in his hand. He gets to see the coverages and talk. I am not worried one ounce about him if he needs reps or now.”
Starting safety Tashaun Gipson has also missed practice recently with a groin injury, so Chicago had better hope the injury bug stops biting already.
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