Bears injury situation growing serious as Terell Smith goes on IR

Smith suffered a torn patellar tendon in Sunday night's game. The non-contact injury occurred coming over to the sidelines in the second quarter to try for a tackle of wide receiver Kristian Wilkerson on a 25-yard pass play.

This wasn't the only player they had to put on injured reserve. Running back Deion Hankins, an undrafted rookie, had to start Sunday's game because of backfield injuries and then left with a knee injury. He is now on IR, and the Bears are so depleted at running back that they had to hold tryouts. They signed Royce Freeman and then threw him onto the practice field right away. They had only three healthy running backs besides Freeman, whose head had to be spinning. D'Andre Swift, Ian Wheeler and recently signed Brittain Brown are the healthy backs as Travis Homer, Roschon Johnson and Kyle Monangai are trying to get past day-to-day type injuries.

Freeman a 29-year-old former Broncos backup who was with Carolina , Houston and the Rams from 2021-23 after being waived by Denver. He was on the Browns' practice squad briefly last year but was cut, and then was on the Rams' practice squad earlier this year before being released.

Freeman has 1,792 yards on 471 carries, averaging 3.8 yards per attempt.

The cornerback situation doesn't appear to be worse than running back right now because, like on the defensive line, they have depth. The quality might be in question, though.

Veteran free agent acquisitions Nahshon Wright and Nick McCloud are taking first-team practice reps, so there appears to be some experienced depth at the position behind Tyrique Stevenson and injured starter Jaylon Johnson.   

Johnson has been out all training camp but did do some work on the field prior to warmups at Soldier Field on Sunday. The hope is he'll be ready for the Sept. 8 season opener.

Wright is still battling with Stevenson for a starting spot. McCloud has 16 NFL starts and was in 15 games last year for the Giants and 49ers but wasn’t signed back after he finished his contract with San Francisco.  Wright was released earlier this year by Minnesota.

They also have veteran Tre Flowers and undrafted rookie Jeremiah Walker. Slot cornerback backup Josh Blackwell can also play on the outside.

Initially the Bears thought they would have more depth with rookie fifth-round cornerback Zah Frazier, but he has had a lengthy excused absence from training camp for personal reasons. His status in terms of an active roster spot is questionable as a result. One positive in his situation was he was spotted on the sidelines at practice on Wednesday.

There are other possibilities on the training camp roster now, after the signings of cornerbacks Mekhi Garner and Kaleb Hayes.

Both players got into the Buffalo game despite only a couple of practices after signing on Aug. 12 and had two tackles apiece.