Facing a defense with Watt, Benardrick McKinney, Brian Cushing, Whitney Mercilus and Jadeveon Clowney in the opener will immediately test whether that patchwork offensive line can hold.
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The Bears will step onto the field with a decidedly different cast when they open the season at the Houston Texans on Sunday.
The Bears did not have anybody in camp competing with Gould, and Pace said they did not look to trade him.
And it was completely justified.
Fortunately for Cutler, the addition of the three-time Pro Bowler at guard hasn’t added anything to the quarterback’s plate. It’s also quite a change for a player who went from one of the top teams in the NFC North to an also-ran.
If Long is healthy – he practiced Monday for the first time since suffering shoulder injury – Sitton is slated to take over at left guard, a move that could slide rookie Cody Whitehair over to center.
And yet, Bears head coach John Fox oddly declared Monday: “I think maybe right now looking at it, I think it’s his best position”.
Dickerson covers the Chicago Bears for ESPN’s NFL Nation. The longer it took, the harder it would have been to learn the offense. With Long at 27 and Leno, Massie, Whitehair and the injured Hroniss Grasu all 26 or younger, this group could be together for a while. It’s just not an easy position to play without experience, so it won’t be surprising if Whitehair is on the bench in Houston.
The Chicago Bears have reached an agreement on a three-year contract with former Green Bay Packers guard Josh Sitton. When the National Football League schedules were released, most of us (probably all of us) got excited when we saw that the first opponent on the Texans’ schedule was the Chicago Bears. Long texted Sitton from the jump and they’ve become friends over the years meeting at the Pro Bowl.
“He’s an explosive guy”, Cutler said.
Cutler never had his receiver corps intact a year ago due to injuries.
“He’s played football long enough”. That would be good experience too. “But we do have a lot more guys in position who are more familiar with the defensive scheme”.
The fear is the Packers know something the Bears don’t, that Green Bay general manager Ted Thompson wouldn’t shed Sitton – reportedly to turn to unproven Lane Taylor – without some kind of issue. “All of these guys are intelligent players that I feel can adapt quickly and our coaches are going to work around the clock and it was just, ‘Hey, let’s get the best players in here and then get them acclimated as quick as we can”.
Sitton is just one man, but assuming the Packers don’t have knowledge on Sitton the Bears lack, his arrival in Chicago is huge – both literally and figuratively. But timing matters, and given the state of the offensive line going into Week 1, this move was justifiable, even if it was risky.
Sitton, 30, has started 110 of 112 Packers regular-season games since the beginning of the 2009 season.
“I wanted to get the decision made yesterday or today, as quickly as I can”, said Sitton, who signed a three-year, $21.75 million deal with Chicago.
“I know a lot about Kevin”, Cutler said. We don’t make those decisions. Since releasing Slauson after the NFL Draft, Pace insisted he felt good about his offensive line depth, but the reality was, it wasn’t there.
“Things come natural to him”, quarterback Jay Cutler said Thursday after practice at Halas Hall.
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Simply put, the Bears are just better.
