A Bears practice squad player tested positive for coronavirus, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, and the team is is putting him through contact tracing.
Practice squad players are not allowed on the sidelines during games, which means the unnamed practice squad player probably did not have meaningful contact with his teammates on the active roster Thursday night. The Bears did not gather as a team at Halas Hall on Friday, either.
Their schedule after the Buccaneers game had already featured a weekend off before the report of a positive test. They won’t practice again in full until mid-afternoon Monday. They are not set to practice Tuesday — a regular day off in their game-week schedule — and will practice Wednesday-Friday, as usual.
NFL players that test positive are required to be put on the league’s Reserve/COVID-19 list, which will be distributed to teams on Saturday afternoon.
Bears coach Matt Nagy has stressed mask-wearing at Halas Hall since the start of summer camp. Last week, he called said the Titans outbreak “wakes you up, for sure.”
“We are persistent in regards in nagging them to the masks always being on, when I can mandate that, when we are inside,” he said last week. “When we are outside, wearing them as much as you can as well. They’re not forced to wear them in practice. I think it just reiterates here the importance of all of us always having the masks on. When you really think about it, it’s really not that hard to put a mask on. Just wear your mask and wear it all the time. It’s not hard.”
