As the Bears prepare for a Week 2 trip to Houston, they will be doing so without a key depth piece on the offensive line. According to Bears senior writer Larry Mayer, interior offensive lineman Ryan Bates will find his way to injured reserve. 
Bates was traded to Chicago early in the offseason this year after five seasons with the Bills. Since entering the league in 2019, Bates has made 19 starts in 73 game appearances, spending only one season as a full-time starter. Upon arriving in Chicago, Bates immediately entered into a position battle at center, losing out to current Bears starter Coleman Shelton.
Even though he lost out on the center job, Bates became an instant competitor for snaps at an uncertain right guard spot. Despite seeing Nate Davis start at right guard, Week 1 saw Bates split time at the position, actually dominating the snaps in the game 38 to 18. With Bates going on IR, Davis will be relied upon more heavily in Week 2.
Taking Bates’ spot on the active roster will be long snapper Scott Daly. This transaction felt inevitable after the Bears placed long-time long snapper Patrick Scales on IR back in August. Daly was elevated off the practice for Week 1, but practice squad players can only be elevated twice off of one contract. With a roster spot opening up, Chicago took advantage and promoted Daly, as Scales will be forced to miss at least three more games.
Joining Daly from the practice squad will be wide receiver Collin Johnson, who will come up as a standard gameday practice squad elevation. Johnson flashed in this year’s Hall of Fame Game, catching two touchdowns from quarterback Brett Rypien but missed the rest of the preseason with an injury. The former fifth-round pick out of Texas will get another regular season opportunity tomorrow before being relegated back to the practice squad after the game.
Tough to lose Bates. Davis got pushed around like a Macy’s Day balloon last season. Not much faith in that guy. Hopefully one of the other back ups can fill in if Davis doesn’t step up.
Hate to second guess Poles, but this situation looks like a roster mistake not starting the season with Ryan Bates in one of the two IR exempt spots rather than Larry Borom. Borom could’ve been cut to save $3M and one of the 8 IR activations since he’s essentially their third swing tackle behind Prior and Amegadje. Bears used all 8 last year earlier than any other team and hope to contend this year, so they must be wiser with them. Perhaps they had to IR Borom for a chance to save part of the $3M or provides insurance in a worst case scenario losing tackles.
The UDFA TE Brenden Bates claimed by NYJ would also now be useful considering their other roster fumble resigning Blassingame, ineffective as an H-back and now hurt bc of it.
Who wants to see Matt Prior at RG & Doug Kramer at Center?
So who thinks the Bears really addressed their OL now? Williams will be the latest QB tackling dummy because Poles refused to adhere to a good rebuild plan and get the pieces for a quality OL (and D line for that matter). This may sink the Bears this season and throw another QB under a bus.
I think that good GMs tend to focus on O lines and build a protective wall around their QB for years, making sure they continue to always upgrade their lines, while other GMs go for the ‘shiny’ objects and wonder why their teams do nothing or get sidelined by one or two injuries on the line (which happens more and more often now, BTW).
A wise man once said one game does not a season make. But the Bears OL was pretty bad week 1. I don’t see the point in drafting Odunze if you don’t have a line to give Willuans the time to get him the ball. Did you see DET OL push their way to the win in OT last week? That’s why they win.
2nd game, 7 sacks…. One game does not a season make, but if one has watched football for any amount of time, one sure can see the patterns (especially with the Bears and their patchwork lines over the past decade).
Williams will be lucky if he survives through 4 games. At least Fields could take off and be big and quick enough to get first downs and keep drives alive.
Poles tends to get stuck on guys. When things don’t work out with a guy, he tries to make sense of why they signed him, by refusing to admit it was a mistake like anybody else, like make him a backup. He won’t do that he gives the guy an exclusive role, (Lucas Patrick) or sticking with a guy who was terrible (Sam Mustipher). Velus Jones. We had to put up with awful Kindle Vildor for a long time. Poles loves to push the envelope well after a player cannot rise to the challenge reasons obvious to everyone else. The other guys who do rise to occasion, sure. But do we hear enough from them? And do they get proper attention? That’s my point. That’s just how it is with Poles, for some players he just gets stuck on guys, or offensive lineman. Has a soft spot for them. Can’t believe a player he drafted drafted doesn’t work, or a free agent didn’t pan out. Has to force them to play until there are a million reasons why the player shouldn’t be playing then will he make his decision. Long after the season. Besides that he’s wonderful, maybe I’m wrong about O’line guys, maybe he just wants to make them work and it’s not because he was an o’line guy, because he’s like that towards other players too. I think if he gave other players an opportunity, rather than miss out on an opportunity a guy missed out on, he’d have a lot better time finding more success.. also Greg Stroman Jr. when not hurt, Very effective. Released… seriously. And Protect your quarterback!!! What are people gonna be saying when your guy isn’t protected in the pocket. Everybody’s gonna be talking. Will Shelton be the new Mustipher? That’s all I’m saying. Go Bears!
What you’ve said about Poles basically applies to all other GMs as well. Especially at the OL positions (where the free agent market offers almost nothing of value) you’re going to see a reluctance to give up on a player. This off season we’ve seen several linemen around the league moved from one spot to another and that trend is likely to continue. Some of these experiments just don’t work but that’s what has to be done when options are limited.
Looks like Ryan will finally have some time to do some renovation work at the Bates Motel.
At this point with this pathetic OL and another apparently clueless OC (I mean why is Kmet MIA, is Swift running into DL linemen instead of finding the hole-when its there anyway, is Jones still on the roster, and why is Homer out there? A guy who was 4th in depth -at best- in the RB room, and no I do not care if he was the OCs lil buddy in Seattle) the Bears are looking at a 4-12 (optimistic I know) record with ‘Justin Williams’ as ‘QB1’. Actually, that’s not fair, as that ‘Justin Fields’ guy is 2-0 with Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile the Packers just won a game without their expensive QB and a journeyman backup, and the Vikings won one with a QB castoff thought of as a bust against a SB contending club.
It looks like a repeat of Justin Fields. They should’ve kept him & used the 2 picks on Joe Alt & Marvin Harrison Jr.