Fire and Ice: Inside the helmets, different Bears personalities flourishing

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BOURBONNAIS, Ill. – Coach Matt Nagy has brought his own personality to a Bears team in search of a new identity in more ways than one. And he clearly has less than zero problem with player personalities being out there. “Be yourself” has been a Nagy mantra from Day 1, and he has more than gotten some colorful “yourselves."

Of course, personalities are anything but all the same. The most common question of any beat writer (besides “How’s Trubisky looking?”) is “What is so-and-so like?” The latter isn’t the harder. For one thing, contact with players is tightly regulated and rare outside of controlled environments. And press conferences aren’t always accurate samplers; a phalanx of TV cameras and recorders can bring out the weird in anybody.

The Bears do not have any discernable 24-carat jerks; not wanting to talk to the media does not earn “jerk” status whatsoever. But within every position group there are the ebullient (“Fire”) and the reserved (“Ice”) personalities, at least to the public, with more than a few shadings of each:

Coaches

Fire: WR coach Mike Furrey - The former NFL wideout is not averse to getting in the faces of his charges, ordering someone to do a simple warmup exercise over if he wasn’t satisfied with the player’s intensity. Allen Robinson, Kevin White and the rest of the bunch may look forward to the relative quiet of game days in front of 70,000 fans.

Runnerup: OL coach Harry Hiestand - The vocal instruction doesn’t stop with the snap. It escalates: Fans in their cars on the Edens pull over wondering why someone is yelling, “Drive! Drive! Drive!” at them.

Ice: D-Coordinator Vic Fangio - The Dean of Defense mostly stands silent off the side, watching…watching…watching…watching….

Quarterbacks

Fire: All of them. They’re quarterbacks. They always think they’re in charge, for cryin’ out loud. Comp’: Surgeon, operating room. Mitch Trubisky even high-fives defensive guys sometimes for good plays, the same guys who dubbed him “Pretty Boy Assassin” for what he was doing to them running scout team.

Ice: Mike Glennon. You knew it really wasn’t “My year” even when he was saying it.

Running Backs

Fire: Tarik Cohen. Anybody 5-6, 181 pounds who describes himself as a “power back” and has been called “The Human Joystick” retires the trophy.

Ice: Jordan Howard. Not a fan of the microphone, Howard may someday achieve the “Ultaback” status created by Raymont Harris, but he right now earns Raymont’s other self-descriptor, “Quiet Storm.”

Wide receivers

Fire: (Tie)

Josh Bellamy. Leading trash-talker, “Ze-bo” has no off-switch.

Taylor Gabriel  “Turbo” describes more than his downfield speed.

Anthony Miller. Rookies should be quiet early? AM didn’t get the memo.

Ice: Allen Robinson. You knew just from the pinstripe suit A-Rob wore to his introductory press conference. All business. Total pro. Scoffed at a question as to any personal goals he had for himself, then answered, “Wins.” Need clarification? “To help win games. that’s why they brought all of us here. That’s all that we’re worried about. To get on the same page, making sure that all the details of the offense are honed in on, all the details of route-running and things like that, and, at the end of the day, winning. That’s why we’re here. We’re here to win games. that’s the most important thing.”

Wait, so what you’re saying is, you want wins?

Offensive line

Fire: Kyle Long. Anyone who can work “hypotenuse” and “Pythagorean Theorem” into an O-line explanation is ahead on points. Texted to Cody Whitehair on draft weekend after Bears drafted CW, “Congratulations Cody Whitehair from Kyle No-Hair.”

Ice: Whitehair. If you’re the “Mike” ‘backer, he will find you. Quietly, but he WILL find you.

Defensive line

Fire: Akiem Hicks. The Philosopher King. Affable, outgoing, had the only semi-fight in camp with what he considered a miscreant O-lineman at the moment, not afraid to peg Leonard Floyd for the Pro Bowl or opine that, as far as changes for the defense, “I think the biggest difference is having an offense that’s going to score in the first half.” You like plain-speaking? Try ’96,’ northeast corner of the locker room.

Ice: Eddie Goldman. The Thin Man (318 pounds now). Quiet, introspective gentleman, very personable. Now, as far as moving him off the ball… not so nice.

Linebackers

Fire: Sam Acho. Player rep, spokesman on issues football or global, high energy, welcomes a good conversation about spiritual, football or other matters.

Ice: (tie)

Leonard Floyd - Anyone who addresses folks as “sir” or “ma’am” might be too polite for pro football.

Nick Kwiatkoski - Easy-going Pittsburgh guy and executioner running the defense with Danny Trevathan out.

Secondary

Fire: Prince Amukamara. Not even be a close second. Magpie. Playful. Having a strong camp and doesn’t mind letting WR’s (and QB’s) know it.

Ice: Kyle Fuller. Gets slight edge over Adrian Amos, and Eddie Jackson is still a polite guy just in his second year. Fuller has sometimes been a man of few public words but when he and Trubisky sat down together at the pre-camp press event, the personality was apparent.

Special teams

Generally all nice guys. But they’re always off by themselves at practice, so... . And kickers are usually different dudes anyway, right?

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