The Chicago Bears are gearing up for the start of the 2022 NFL season, where they’ll host the San Francisco 49ers this Sunday at Soldier Field.
But there are still plenty of lingering questions heading into the week, including along the injury front. The Bears have some injury questions to three projected starters on offense ahead of Sunday’s game.
Center Lucas Patrick has been sidelined with a thumb injury since the beginning of training camp. Patrick broke his right thumb and reportedly had surgery. But all projections pointed to Patrick being ready in time for the season opener.
If Patrick isn’t ready to go for Week 1, it’ll be Sam Mustipher getting the start at center. Mustipher, who started all 17 games at center last season for Chicago, has been the starting center in Patrick’s absence.
Free-agent receiver Byron Pringle suffered a quad injury in early August, which head coach Matt Eberflus said would require him to miss some time. Eberflus said he didn’t expect it to carry over into the regular season. Flash forward one month later, we’ll see if Pringle is able to make his return for the season opener.
Rookie wideout Velus Jones Jr. has an undisclosed injury that forced him to miss the preseason finale. We’ll see if Jones is able to return to practice this week in hopes of making his NFL debut against San Francisco.
Chicago currently has just four healthy receivers — Darnell Mooney, Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis and Ihmir Smith-Marsette — and they’re without two of their top four wideouts in Pringle and Jones. The Bears already have one receiver on injured reserve in N’Keal Harry, who can return as early as Week 5.
The good news is rookie safety Jaquan Brisker returned to practice last week after breaking his thumb in the preseason opener. We’ll see his status this week.
The Bears will release their first injury report on Wednesday, which is when we’ll get our first confirmation about the status of those three players and any other injuries lingering on the roster.
