Bears to proceed practicing for Panthers game after no additional COVID positives

The Bears didn’t put any players on the reserve/COVID list Sunday, indicating all players tested negative after practice-squad offensive lineman Badara Traore went on the list Saturday.

If the team has no new positive tests Monday, coach Matt Nagy will hold a walk-through and continue preparation for the game Sunday at the Panthers. The Bears will practice Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, as well, then travel Saturday to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Traore, 23, got an opportunity as an undrafted tackle out of LSU and has been with the team since July.

As far as day-to-day activities and practices, a practice-squad player does everything the players on the roster do. It works in the Bears’ favor, at least, that players have been off since playing the Buccaneers on Thursday.

Traore was the first Bears player put on the reserve/COVID list since defensive tackle John Jenkins was activated from it Aug. 3. They had a scare when nine players tested positive in the preseason, but those were determined to be false positives.

Nagy has been obsessive about doing everything possible to prevent an outbreak from derailing the Bears’ season, including changing practice and travel plans.

The NFL has postponed a dozen games because of coronavirus concerns but has changed teams’ bye weeks to stay on track to finish every team’s 16-game schedule by Jan. 3, as planned.

By keeping as many games as possible within the original 17-week regular-season calendar, the league has flexibility to deal with any late-season postponements by using a potential Week 18 for makeup games.

Several games were rescheduled Sunday because of ongoing concerns about a potential outbreak within the Patriots. The NFL nixed their game Monday against the Broncos, which already had been pushed back a day, and will have the teams play in Week 6 instead.

That decision came down at 8 a.m. Sunday, less than 36 hours before the scheduled kickoff, and had a ripple effect on seven other games. None of those changes affected the Bears.