Eddie Goldman may be finally, hopefully, potentially, ready to make his regular season debut for the Bears, if everything goes well over the next two days and nothing changes. After practicing in full for two consecutive days, the Bears removed Goldman from the injury report, clearing the way for him to play against the Lions.
“I give him credit for really getting to this point right now,” Matt Nagy said. “It’s unlucky what happened early on there in that first week, but that’s a part of life, and so for him to get back to this point and for all of us to feel good about where he’s at, with his status here on [the injury report], I think we’re going to see a player who’s going to come out and give it his all.
“I don’t like to put stat lines or anything like that on the guy, but I know this: He had a really, really good week of practice and now probably more than anything is his conditioning and just getting used to that game condition. I know he holds himself to play well and puts a lot of accountability on himself to help out so he’s going to be anxious to get out there.”
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There are valid questions about Goldman’s conditioning, considering he hasn’t played a regular season game since 2019. Goldman opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID-19 concerns.
He’s had a bumpy start to this year, as well. Goldman initially skipped out on mandatory minicamp, and Nagy clarified that it was an unexcused absence. It seemed like no one on the Bears staff knew whether or not he’d report to training camp either, until he did show up. Then, during training camp, he missed over a week of practice on the reserve/COVID-19 list. But just a few weeks later, Goldman had to be shelved again, this time with an ankle/knee injury. He bounced between limited practices and DNPs, waffling between “questionable,” “doubtful'' and “out” injury designations, too.
But now, things have looked as optimistic as ever for Goldman to return to the field.
