Kyle Long Will Miss Chicago Bears OTA’s

March 14, 2013; Eugene, OR, USA; Oregon Ducks offensive lineman Ryan Clanton and offensive lineman Kyle Long go up against each other at Oregon pro day at Moshofsky Center. Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports

A lot of experts expect Kyle Long to come in and win a starting job on the Chicago Bears’ offensive line right out of training camp.  That plan takes a bit of a setback since Long will not be permitted to participate in Organized Team Activities (OTA’s) thanks to a foolish NFL rule.

Long is among a handful of NFC North players who will not be able to participate in OTA’s:

"Draft picks and college free agents can’t participate in organized team activities until after final exams at their respective schools.That isn’t an issue on most campuses, where finals occur in early May. But there are at least four NFC North players, all from Pac-12 schools, who apparently will miss all or most of their team’s OTAs this spring because of a later academic calendar."

The good news is that Long will be allowed to participate in this weekend’s upcoming rookie minicamp and the full team mandatory minicamp set for June 11-13, but otherwise he will not be able to work out with his teammates at Halas Hall until Oregon’s final exams are completed, which are scheduled to conclude on June 14.

Long could use all the time he could get to spend time with coaches and teammates to try to win a starting job, so this is a setback to winning the starting job.  I’m not sure if Long is done with classes or still has exams coming up or not, but isn’t the point of going to school to get a job?  Once you have a job, shouldn’t they be able to find some way to do makeups?  It’s not like he’s focusing on his classwork right now anyway.  I’m sure the only studying we want Long to be doing is of his new playbook.