NEWSLETTER
The injury bug never stopped nibbling at the Chicago Bears during the John Fox era, which saw waves of important players finish the season on injured reserve year in and year out. With a bit of better luck on the injury front, perhaps things could have been different during Fox’s time in Chicago.
Alas, a new day is here as Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune reports the team has hired Andre Tucker to be the new head athletic trainer. Tucker arrives in Chicago by way of Cleveland, having served as the Browns’ assistant head athletic trainer from 2010 through 2017. He also spent three years with the Falcons and five years with the Jaguars. Hopefully, Tucker’s experience and a fresh outlook will help the 2018 Bears avoid the injury riddled fate teams have recently faced.
Since the start of the 2016 season, 37 Bears players have finished the season on injured reserve and have lost numerous others were waived/injured at some point during their time in Chicago. Bears players have missed 558 games due to being on IR since the start of 2015. That’s a lot. So while GM Ryan Pace said the team was tracking and tweaking things in an effort to curb the issue, whatever measures were taken clearly weren’t working as effectively as the organization would have liked. As we mentioned in Wednesday’s Bullets, the Bears’ former head trainer signed on with the Buffalo Bills in the same capacity.
Even though Tucker is expected to take over, the Bears haven’t announced a replacement for strength coach Jason George, who was dismissed in January.
UPDATE: The Bears have a new strength and conditioning coach. Sources tell Doug Samuels of FootballScoop.com will hire Jason Loscalzo to take over in that position in Chicago. Loscalzo takes over after spending six years as the strength coach at Washington State. He also has experience at Boston College (strength coach) and Auburn (assistant strength coach and director of sports nutrition).
