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The Chicago Bears made it through the first quarter of the season without any COVID-19 scares. But over the last week, there have been a couple of concerns.
Practice squad offensive lineman Badara Traore was the first — and only, to this point — Bears player to test positive for COVID-19 on Saturday. The Bears had played on Thursday night — without practice squad players on the sideline — so there was limited exposure.
On Wednesday, Bears head coach Matt Nagy announced that the team would be without offensive line coach Juan Castillo, who is self-quarantining after being in close contact with someone that had tested positive for COVID. That person was not Traore, Nagy said. Castillo will not be at Halas Hall this week nor will he travel to Carolina for Sunday’s game against the Panthers.
“We’re just trying to be overly cautious to quarantine [Castillo] through Sunday through the guidance of the NFL and our medical experts,” said coach Matt Nagy. “And to his credit, it was self-reported, which, obviously, in these times is a selfless act.”
Assistant offensive line coach Donovan Raiola will fill in for Castillo on Sunday, who’s already had a hand in installs at practice this week.
“He’ll be down on the field and interacting with those guys,” Nagy said. “On gameday, it’s next-man-up mentality on the coaching side, and so this is an opportunity for him to grow. He did a hell of a job today in installs and I just thought it was fun to watch that happen. The guys have trust in him, and now for us as a coaching staff, we’ve got to be able to help him out to help those players out.”
From the start, the Bears have gotten ahead of these COVID protocols, and there were some recent changes to continue to exercise caution and keep these players, coaches and staff as safe as possible.
The Bears have limited opportunities for close contact, which includes distributing lunch in takeout containers rather than gathering in the lunch room and switched meetings from in-person to Zoom calls and limited the number of players allowed in the weight room at once.
“That, to us, is where we’re at right now, to try to do everything we can to help not just the Bears, but the NFL,” Nagy said. “We don’t want to be one of those 32 teams that can take this and make this go the other direction because of COVID.
“Whether that means taking two planes to an away game or having 12 buses go to a stadium, that’s what we’re doing right now. That’s a credit to our organization for allowing us to go above and beyond.”
