With injuries being an issue in three consecutive seasons for the Bears, general manager Ryan Pace promised to look at everything in football operations.
“We did a lot to address it last year, whether schedule changes, tracking data, a lot of tweaks,” Pace said earlier this month after coach John Fox was let go. “But it wasn’t enough.”
So more changes have been made under Pace and new coach Matt Nagy, who are currently in Mobile, Alabama for the Senior Bowl practices.
A league source told the Sun-Times that head athletic trainer Nate Breske will not return. Breske’s departure follows that of strength and conditioning coach Jason George, who was informed last week that he would not return. Assistant strength and conditioning coach Rick Perry also was dismissed. Pierre Ngo, another assistant, is expected to return.
Breske and George joined the Bears in 2015 after Fox was hired. Breske previously spent seven seasons with the 49ers as their director of rehabilitation and assistant head athletic trainer.
The Bears placed 16 players on injured reserve last season. In 2016, the team had 21 players on IR. Soft-tissue injuries were a recurring issue for some players.
“With parity in our league, injuries play a big factor in our results,” Pace said on Jan. 1. “It’s something we have to get on top of and that’s my job. There’s going to be studies into why are these teams the healthiest, why are these teams not, and are there some commonalties? But we have to get that fixed because it’s affecting our results.”
