What does Coby Bryant’s Absence Mean for the Chicago Bears?

When the Chicago Bears purged their safety cupboard this offseason, you figured they would have a plan to fill it back up with some great talent. They did, bringing in former Seattle Seahawk Coby Bryant and first-round draft pick Dillon Thieneman. Training camp started abuzz with excitement as the secondary looked poised for a big season, with Bryant and Thieneman ready to go.

Then, just a few days into camp, the unthinkable happened. Bryant was carted off the field with an injury. Well, really three injuries in one. He bruised a bone and had a small fracture along with hyperextending his left knee. The first estimate of time missed hovered somewhere around eight to ten weeks.

But just the other day, head coach Ben Johnson came to the podium to announce what fans were fearing after hearing about the injury.

The Impact

Bryant is going to miss four to six months following knee surgery. First off, it’s a significant blow to the Bears because they were counting on him to help lead the back end of their defense. He was supposed to be the one to help the young rookie along at safety, combining to make one of the best safety tandems in the entire league. But it appears that’s not going to happen this season.

The Bears will do what they do best and regroup. They have already found someone to try to replace Bryant and bring Thieneman along. The player is journeyman safety Xavier Woods. Woods brings a lot of experience to the position and can, providing he stays healthy, fill in and be a guide for the rookie.
Woods is not Bryant by any means, but he’s a smart player with a lot of experience. He’ll be a nice fill-in while the Bears wait, albeit a long time, for Bryant to return to the team. Should Chicago make the playoffs, Bryant may be back and able to contribute.

The Downside

There is a lot of bad that can happen when one of your star players is out for an extended period. The Bears were banking on Bryant to team up with Thieneman to form a “dynamic duo” of sorts at the safety positions. The downside to not having Bryant back there is that the Bears don’t have that great experience. Remember that Bryant is a Super Bowl champion and understands what it takes to get there. Having that on the team is huge.

Missing his leadership, along with his ability to play solid defense in the secondary, is going to be huge for the Bears. The Bears needed him there to get some help in the secondary with their previous purging of last year’s starters and backups. But now, they sit on the precipice of wondering just what’s going to happen to their secondary until he returns. Will Thieneman and someone else be able to hold things together until Bryant is back?

The Fix

There must be a fix for this, right? Well, signing the seasoned veteran Woods was a great move.
Remember Kevin Byard, who was somewhat of an aged veteran? He filled in nicely for the Bears before they let him walk in free agency (which might have been a bigger loss than people realize now). He easily had a year or two left in him, but his price tag was probably a little high for the cash-strapped Bears. So, they had to let him go, and he found a home in New England. He isn’t coming back to Chicago, and the Bears could really use him right now.

Hopefully Woods can help get things going and keep the Bears’ secondary solid.

However, Woods suffered a groin injury in the Bears’ first preseason game against the Cleveland Browns. It’s looking like he’ll be fine and should be able to start the season. The Bears may have dodged a bullet there. But they need some additional depth at safety. They might be in the market for a solid free agent or even trade for someone.

The End

In the end, it’s hard to believe that the Bears have suffered as many injuries as they have this preseason. So far, Bryant’s has been the worst. But other players are losing significant practice time due to injuries, and that isn’t helping. They are getting a good portion of those players back, but the missed time hurts. They are losing out on building chemistry and cohesion heading into the season, and that lost time can be big.

Let’s hope that the Bears get all the injured players back, that they can. Let’s hope that they’ll be ready to go for the season and help take this team all the way to the Super Bowl.