The Bears didn’t bring cornerback Kyle Fuller with them to New England for their joint practices and preseason game with the Patriots because of a knee injury that’s been bothering the 2014 first-round pick since the spring.
Fuller had remained on the field despite the issue, but the Bears opted to shut him down recently as it started to take a bigger toll on his ability to execute. General Manager Ryan Pace said on WGN Radio’s “Intentional Grounding” that the team is now trying to figure out the best way to proceed.
“He’s kind of had this nagging injury that we thought maybe he could play with, but as time went on, you could tell it was affecting his movement skills,” Pace said. “So for us, last week, it was like, all right guys, let’s press pause, let’s take another look at this, and make sure we’re exploring all our options. And that’s what we’ve done. So he’s been getting evaluated over the last couple of days and I’m optimistic that’s something we can get ahold of to make him a better player.”
The big missing piece is how long it will take before Fuller is ready to get back to work and Pace indicated that won’t be clear until ongoing “medical evaluations” are completed. Losing Fuller for any extended period of time would be a blow to a cornerback group that’s very young outside of Tracy Porter.
