BOURBONNAIS, Ill. _ The Bears had their first "C" schedule day Friday, which included a walkthrough that was not open to fans. Still, two days into camp and without a practice in full pads, injuries already are mounting.
Bears outside linebacker Pernell McPhee is out indefinitely after the procedure, which team orthopedic surgeon Mark Bowen performed Friday in Chicago. Coach John Fox announced the news.
Where this leaves McPhee for the regular season is anyone's guess. Fox declined to speculate about the timeline for his return, knowing it took McPhee longer than expected to come back last season from offseason surgery on his left knee. At the least, his availability for the preseason is in doubt and the regular season is open-ended.
"The extent of the scope is just a clean-up," Fox said.
McPhee's scope Friday is the third such procedure he is known to have had on his right knee. He had two on it in 2012 with the Ravens and played effectively in subsequent seasons.
This procedure is on a different knee than the one that required surgery early in 2016 and landed McPhee on the PUP list. Last season, McPhee missed the first six games while recovering and played only 25.5 percent of the Bears' defensive snaps during the regular season.
The Bears put McPhee on the active/physically-unable-to-perform list Wednesday when an "irregularity," as Fox described it, was discovered in his knee. His absence leaves the Bears without one of their most rugged edge defenders against the run. And it thins the rotation of outside linebackers, exposing Leonard Floyd and Willie Young to more of a pounding.
