LAKE FOREST, Ill. — With center Hroniss Grasu missing practice time due to a neck injury, for the second straight time, it is looking like the Chicago Bears will start left guard Matt Slauson at center, right guard Vladimir Ducasse at left guard and Patrick Omameh at right guard.
It’s the fourth different starting offensive line combination they’ve used this year and until the Bears used this line they weren’t really sure how it would turn out.
“I think, it’s like going into a boxing match,” said right tackle Kyle Long, the only lineman to play all seven games at his regular position — one he didn’t play for the first time until after preseason. “You can hit a heavy bag as many times as your coach can make you do it. But until you get out there and get hit in the mouth or you hit somebody in the mouth, you don’t really know where you’re at.”
–With running back Jeremy Langford expected to start for injured Matt Forte, it brings a different type of back into the lineup.
The offensive line may have to adjust more to a back who starts quicker and runs hard. While Forte runs hard, he is more of a breakaway threat or cruiser with the patience to let his opening develop.
“He runs hard, he puts his head down and he goes,” guard/center Matt Slauson said about Langford. “In the preseason games it was easy for me to see that he runs extremely hard.”
Long had his own way of describing Langford’s style.
“So I think from a linear standpoint, you’ll see a guy who’s running downhill, and I think Bears fans will like it,” Long said. “I know I like the guy a lot. He runs hard, and he’s a tough kid.”
–After being targeted by Jay Cutler only five times last game, tight end Martellus Bennett wasn’t going to complain. What he didn’t say may have spoken volumes.
“You’ll have to talk to Jay or (offensive coordinator) Adam (Gase) about that,” Bennett said. “I’m just trying to be a really good employee. That’s all.”
Bennett said he can only get himself into trouble by saying more.
“At some point, they’ve got to come my way, but until they do there’s nothing I can do about it.”
–Normally, special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers has had to address poor kick coverage with the Bears so deeply mired (31st) after allowing two early-season kickoff return touchdowns. Now the questions are about punt returns after giving up a 65-yard TD return against the Vikings.
“We’d done, in my mind, a solid job of covering punts for the majority of the year,” Rodgers said. “We get hit with trick play against Seattle. We obviously didn’t cover that very well. But the normal punt returns, there’s some things that show up, and we didn’t necessarily get hit by them.”
The Bears have fallen to 26th in the league stopping punt returns.
–Marc Mariani’s greatest strength as a return man had been judging and handling punts, and Rodgers lost no confidence in him despite two muffs against the Vikings. The Bears retained possession on both.
“His history has been very good in terms of a ball security,” Rodgers said. “And (Minnesota’s returner) put one on the ground. A little bit more wind up there than sometimes it may look. A left-footed guy, the wind is coming across, when he hits that inside-out punt, it’s usually going to die short and left. That’s what happened. A little bit of traffic on the first one.”