The Chicago Bears Injured Reserve: Who Was On It To End the Season

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Offensive Players on Injured Reserve

The Bears had a total of five offensive players on injured reserve when the season came to an end. A profile of each of those five players is below.

Kyle Long-Long, the Bears ex-starting guard that seemingly lived on injured reserve, has declared that he is retiring and no longer going to pursue a career in the NFL. He went on injured reserve due to hip problems and missed the remaining 11 games of the season. The Bears will miss his leadership but he hasn’t played that much over the past few seasons anyway so his leaving may not matter that much. I would expect the Bears to go out and find a quality starting guard either in free agency or the draft and try to make up for the hole that Long will leave for not being there. His career had so much potential. It’s just too bad that he didn’t pan out.

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Ben Braunecker-Braunecker missed the final two games of the regular season (and three more due to injury) thanks to problems due to a lingering concussion. The problems at tight end, for the Bears, in 2019 are well known. They just didn’t get any production at the tight end position and Braunecker had a hand in not helping at the position. While his absence left them scraping the bottom of the barrel at tight end, they didn’t miss that much with him being out. What is going to happen to him this offseason? The Bears are thin at tight end but can do better than Braunecker. I would expect to not see him back next year.

Trey Burton-Speaking of the Bears’ tight end problems, Burton is another player that spent a lot of time injured last year and just couldn’t seem to stay on the field when the Bears needed him most. It was his groin that took him out of so many games in 2019 and the Bears, along with their fans, certainly hope that the is fully healed and ready to go by the time that the next season rolls around. It’s not likely the Bears will cut him, even though they probably should because he has a cap number that may make it impossible to let him go. Look for him to be back next season but can he contribute.

T.J. Clemings-Clemings, an offensive tackle, began the season on injured reserve. He was likely placed there as a means to “stash” him so that he wouldn’t get signed by another team. The injury that he is listed as having was to his quadriceps and it was either serious enough to keep him out of the year or the Bears stashed him on injured reserve. You can expect that the will be in training camp competing for a backup tackle spot.

Adam Shaheen-The young tight end missed the last four games of the year on injured reserve plus another three just sitting out due to a foot injury. The second-round pick out of tiny Ashland has not developed into the kind of player that the Bears, and Pace, want him to be and has failed to acclimate to the league. If the Bears don’t let him go this offseason it will be somewhat of a shock. They need to cut the deadweight that Shaheen is and start over fresh with someone else.

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