Chicago Bears Training Camp Practice 1 Notebook
Jul 26, 2012; Bourbonnais, IL, USA; Chicago Bears training camp logo during the opening day of training camp at Olivet Nazarene University. Mandatory Credit: Bradley Leeb-USA TODAY Sports
The waiting is over! The Chicago Bears opened training camp, head coach Marc Trestman’s first at the controls of an NFL team, on Friday morning. It’s quite a change from past seasons under Lovie Smith, where the Bears would sleep in and practice in the afternoon. Here are some notes from the first day’s activities:
- The starting offensive line lined up like this from left to right: Bushrod, Slauson, Garza, James Brown, Webb while Kyle Long split reps with Brown at RG. Trestman confirmed there’s a competition at RG.
- Speaking of competitions, Webb took most of the snaps at RT, but Jonathan Scott will be a factor at some point.
- Jermon Bushrod had the first false start of the practice. See, he’s fitting in already!
- Jay Cutler’s first pass of the Marc Trestman era was tipped at the line of scrimmage and intercepted by Chris Conte. So much for “minimal tipped balls” as Marc Trestman suggested in his opening presser. How fitting!
- Kelvin Hayden added an INT and Zack Bowman made an athletic diving pass breakup.
- $8.5 million dollar man, DT Henry Melton was limited in practice due to illness. Michael Wright reports that it was not a hangover.
- All 90 men on the roster practiced today, including newcomer Jamaal Anderson.
- Brandon Marshall was not at all limited in practice coming off offseason hip surgery. Marshall made a nice one-handed grab in team drills.
- Devin Hester spent most of his time on the sidelines, catching balls coming off the JUGS machine.
- Lance Briggs was making the calls on the defense from the WLB spot. He says “I was comfortable in my role before. Now, I am getting comfortable with being uncomfortable”.
- Marc Trestman buzzed around practice and insists that it runs quickly: “It’s not a symposium, get the play going!”
- Generally, Trestman liked what he saw in practice, with one big exception: “We played very, very well throughout most of the practice, but those turnovers and pre-snap penalties are going to hurt us.”
- By all accounts, everyone made through practice unscathed.
We’ve got the first practice in the books. If you went down to Bourbonnais or followed along on Twitter like I did, what were your reactions? What are you looking forward to see?