NEWSLETTER
The holiday is over, which means a real injury report can be released.
And this is what it looked like for the Chicago Bears ahead of their Week 17 matchup against the Minnesota Vikings:
#Bears Thursday injury report pic.twitter.com/ospflcu37k
— Chicago Bears (@BearsPR) December 26, 2019
The notable change above is cornerback Prince Amukamara going from a full participant on Wednesday to limited on Thursday. Although it’s important to note that Wednesday’s injury report was technically theoretical (estimating who would have practiced had there been one on Christmas Day).
But Thursday’s injury report (and the update that came with it) is far more telling. Amukamara has been battling a hamstring issue since self-reporting the problem after the Bears beat the Lions on Thanksgiving. Since then, he’s missed one game and saw his snap share go from 95% in each of his first 12 games to 47.5% against the Packers and 59.1% against the Chiefs.
Amukamara is a steady and reliable cornerback for this defense, but isn’t as valuable when he isn’t at full strength. Hence, the Bears have pushed Kevin Toliver II into a time share. Doing so allowed the Bears to be competitive, but also positioned them to evaluate a possible depth piece well ahead of the 2020 season. If Amukamara were to stay limited in Friday’s practice, Chicago could do right by its evaluation process in sitting him out for Sunday’s game and giving Toliver a larger piece of playing time.
We will continue to monitor the injury report to see if the Bears will be without one of their starting corners on Sunday.
