Matt Nagy: Bears LB Roquan Smith has earned more playing time

SHARE Matt Nagy: Bears LB Roquan Smith has earned more playing time
roquan_smith_denver_2_e1534432664214.jpg

Bears rookie linebacker Roquan Smith runs through drills against the Broncos. | David Zalubowski/AP

Rookie inside linebacker Roquan Smith will play more Monday night than he did against the Packers on Sunday night, when he logged only eight snaps.

“I think so, yeah,” Bears coach Matt Nagy said Thursday. “We go back to training camp, and you talk about where he was at, and he had that little deal with his hammy. We wanted to be kind of cautious with it and be smart.

“And I do feel with that time he’s had, he’s in a position to play more.”

Smith missed the first 29 days of the preseason because of a contract standoff and felt tightness in his left hamstring in his second practice back. He didn’t practice in full until last week.

He only entered the game in Green Bay because Danny Trevathan hurt his back. Smith had a sack on his first snap and was eventually replaced by Trevathan. He took the field in place of Nick Kwiatkoski on the Packers’ last scoring drive.

Smith said earlier this week that he was ready to play as long as his coaches wanted, “if it’s one quarter or an entire game.”

Long sits

Guard Kyle Long sat out practice with an ankle injury, according to the Bears’ injury report. Long spoke to reporters earlier this week and did not mention an injury.

Earlier Thursday, Nagy said the team “came out of the game pretty healthy.”

Safety DeAndre Houston-Carson, who has a broken forearm, also did not practice. Cornerback Bryce Callahan was limited with a knee injury, and tight end Daniel Brown returned to full participation after injuring his right shoulder in the preseason finale.

B-Marsh returns

Off a Seahawks debut in which he caught three passes for 46 yards and a touchdown, wide receiver Brandon Marshall will return to Soldier Field for the first time since the Bears traded him in March 2015.

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Marshall has brought “experience, toughness and playmaking that everybody loves to have in a big receiver.”

Carroll said the Seahawks had first talked to Marshall eight years ago and had since watched him carefully. They had a good sense of what they were getting in him.

“Yeah, he does have a big personality,” Carroll said. “He has been through a lot. One of the best players to ever play in the league at his position. So you always wonder.

RELATED

• From early mornings to late nights, OLB Khalil Mack proves his worth to Bears

Defining moment: Bears QB Mitch Trubisky can take the heat, vows to improve

“But we just watched who he is and how he handles himself and how hard he works and how open he has been to work with young players and open to being coached, and he’s been great. It has been a very successful start to our relationship.”

Urlacher memories

Carroll said he’d “never seen anybody bigger and faster and more effective” than former middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, whom the Bears will honor at halftime Monday with a ring from his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction.

“When he was in his heyday, man, he was a great, great player,” he said. “And great spirit, too, about the game. . . . So it’s great that they’re honoring him.”

Hall of Fame nominees

Former Bears Wilber Marshall and Olin Kreutz were two of 102 modern-era nominees for next year’s Pro Football Hall of Fame class announced Thursday.

Marshall, a linebacker, made two Pro Bowls in four years with the Bears after being drafted 11th overall in 1984. He was a 1986 first-team All-Pro.

Kreutz, a center, made six Pro Bowls in 13 years with the Bears, who drafted him in the third round in 1998.

The list will be whittled to 25 in November and 15 finalists in January before the final vote takes place on the day before the Super Bowl.

The Latest
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.
He launched a campaign against a proposed neo-Nazis march at a time the suburb was home to many Holocaust survivors. His rabbi at Skokie Central Congregation urged Jews to ignore the Nazis. “I jumped up and said, ‘No, Rabbi. We will not stay home and close the windows.’ ”
That the Bears can just diesel their way in, Bronko Nagurski-style, and attempt to set a sweeping agenda for the future of one of the world’s most iconic water frontages is more than a bit troubling.