It's been virtual meetings and not physical work on the football field.
Still, Bears coach Matt Nagy has decided to dismiss his team for the summer a bit early.
The Bears were scheduled to continue working virtually next week, as well. Now they'll cut it short and stop after Thursday's meetings.
"I talked to the team yesterday and informed them that we're going to be ending our offseason program a week and a half early," Nagy said during Tuesday's teleconference with Chicago media. "We've really had a phenomenal nine weeks of virtual learning. They've been really, really solid weeks."
In explaining it, Nagy called the last week a strain on everyone in many ways considering the COVID-19 situation and the aftermath of the George Floyd killing.
"I think right now emotionally, and just there's been a lot obviously in the last week and a half, but on top of that, on the football side we've done a lot mentally too, then," he said. "And we just think with the attendance that we've had with the players and coaches being very adaptive, it's been different but they've responded very very well to it."
Not having virtual meetings will allow players to do actual work.,
"So now they get to not really worry about meetings so much Monday through Thursday, but they can really focus on their bodies and training, coming to training camp really prepared," Nagy said. "And then for our coaches it allows us to really dive into the cut-ups and preparing to help these kids out."
The bottom line is the Bears feel prepared as an organization now for the next phase, the physical part of camp.
"We've done so much we feel like we're in a really good place right now," Nagy said.
Coaches in the NFL were cleared to return to their buildings last week but the Bears' coaches have not yet returned. Nagy is uncertain when this will occur.
"For us, our focus is really on training camp and whenever that is that we all get in," Nagy said. "We realize that things are probably going to be a little bit different. We don’t necessarily know how. But we want to focus on, like, the scheduling can get obviously a lot different. So we just need to prepare and have different contingency plans for that."
Nagy said even though virtual meetings are ending, he'll still try to stay in contact with other coaches.
"Then on the coaching side, we have a plan as well, to stick together, and once a week get together with Zoom calls and just make sure that we're communicating," he said.
In 2011, the NFL conducted training camps without any offseason work due to the standoff between the NFLPA and the owners. It's the last time this happened and Nagy was an assistant with the Eagles then.
"I think the No. 1 concern that you always run into is going to be the health and injury risk that these players have," Nagy said. "They're all on different levels. I've told you guys that our mindset coming into this year is that we're gonna be a physically and mentally tough team. That's talk right now. That's all that I can do."
Nagy promised a physically tough camp.
"Now, that said, two years ago we talked about being calloused," Nagy said. "That's real. That’s gonna happen this year—I promise you that will happen in our training camp. But we also can't be stupid.
"We need to make sure that we're smart and we're calculated in how we do it. Injuries can affect a football team. Specifically you can run into hamstring injuries, calf injuries, all that. We’ve tackled that pretty well. We have an actual plan on how we want to go about fixing that and we have a plan for it. So that was probably the biggest thing from the lockout year, knowing that we gotta be prepared."
When camp begins and the details have yet to be finalized due to COVID-19 restrictions. The league put out a memo talking about keeping players 6 feet apart in locker rooms and maintaining social distance with staff.
Nagy isn't sure how all of this can work with 90 players on a roster, but they'll make the attempt.
"Here's what I'll say is this is where you've got to get creative," Nagy said. "And we'll do that. We've already thought of a lot of different things. I love the discussions that we've had as a coaching staff and as a support staff. Everyone is thinking all the time.
"And the more people you have bringing up ideas of how to do this and how to do that, we had it this morning. So there's going to be ways to be creative and we're going to be creative in how we do things, too. It's going to be totally different."
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June 10, 2020 at 01:58AM
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Bears Decide to Cut Their Virtual Offseason Short - Bear Maven
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