NEWSLETTER
Reinforcements are on the way for a banged up Chicago Bears secondary.
The team announced defensive back Deiondre’ Hall has been activated from injured reserve as part of a busy day on the transaction wire.
Hall has been on IR since the beginning of the season with a hamstring injury, but returned to practice recently and opened up the 21-day window in which the Bears needed to decide whether or not to activate him for the rest of the season. The Bears’ coaching staff has apparently seen what it needed to activate Hall, who is expected to be a contributor on defense, as well as special teams.
Hall played eight games as a rookie in 2016 and came away with an interception despite playing just 79 defensive snaps. The Northern Iowa product who was selected in the fourth round (116th overall) in the 2016 NFL Draft played extensively on special teams as a rookie, getting in on at least 30 percent of the special teams snaps in four of his eight games.
To make room on the active roster, the Bears placed outside linebacker Isaiah Irving on injured reserve. Irving played seven games, appearing on more special teams snaps (90) than defensive (74) in his rookie season. The undrafted free agent opened eyes toward the end of the preseason as a pass-rushing 3-4 outside linebacker, but landed on the practice squad before being activated in Week 5. Irving did not practice all week with a knee injury, which apparently was bad enough for the Bears to move him to injured reserve.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for Irving, who played a season-high 36 defensive snaps as the Bears tried to fill the playing time gap left behind by Leonard Floyd. It’s not great timing for Chicago’s talent evaluation team, which has a lot of work to do between now and the end of the regular season.
As the roster churning continues, outside linebacker/defensive end hybrid Howard Jones officially re-joined the Bears practice squad on Saturday. To make room for him, the team released tight end Colin Thompson.
