The plan has gone awry for Trey Burton, and now the Bears don’t know whether they’ll have him for their season opener.
Burton hasn’t been right since missing the Bears’ playoff game against the Eagles with what was eventually diagnosed as a sports hernia. It completely derailed his offseason, preventing him from football activity for months, and he’s hit a few speed bumps since returning.
The latest injury is a “mild groin strain” that happened last week, according to general manager Ryan Pace, and the Bears are preparing for Burton to be a game-time decision Thursday against the Packers. He did not practice Sunday, but was on the field for the part of practice open to the media Monday.
“It’s just one of those things that could have happened to anybody,” coach Matt Nagy said. “Now we’re just trying to figure out the best way to deal with it... It’s unfortunate, but at the same time we’re going to attack it head-on, and he’s doing the same thing, and we’ll just see what happens for his status.”
Going without Burton would be a major headache for the Bears. He’s their highest-paid and most productive tight end, and the options to replace him — Adam Shaheen and Ben Braunecker — have 24 career catches combined.
Burton, meanwhile, put up career-highs of 54 catches, 569 yards and six touchdowns last season. He was fourth on the team in yards receiving and total touchdowns.
After missing the playoff game in early January, Burton didn’t have sports hernia surgery until May. He targeted the start of training camp for his return and practiced five straight days, but looked diminished. The Bears eased him back toward playing shape, and Nagy said all along he expected him to be fine for the opener.
Nagy and Pace maintained that Burton fully healed from the original injury and that the current groin strain is unrelated, but was clear last month that Burton’s recovery from the sports hernia hasn’t gone as intended.
“With training camp it was more just being mindful, just being smart,” Pace said. “So to rush him out there in training camp and say, ‘Hey, go full speed in practice,’ that’s just not the smart thing to do.”
Burton was not 100 percent at the time of the injury last week, but Pace said he was “in a good place” as far as being ready for the Packers game.
