The Chicago Bears have struggled injuries in the secondary this season, where they haven’t had the entire starting secondary on the field together since Week 1.
But Chicago’s defensive back group is starting to get healthy ahead of a divisional showdown against the Minnesota Vikings, where there’s a good chance the Bears will have their entire starting secondary on the field.
Chicago has been without safety Eddie Jackson and cornerbacks Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon for various games this season. Jackson has missed the past three games with a foot injury, Johnson has missed the past two games with a hamstring injury and Gordon has been on injured reserve with a broken hand since Week 2.
With Johnson and Jackson returning to practice (in limited fashion) and Gordon designated to return from IR, they’re all on track to return in Week 6.
Johnson talked about the potential return of all three of them, and he sounded like someone who believes they’ll all suit up against the Vikings.
“Shoot. That’ll bring the energy, bring the juice,”Johnson said, via NBC Sports Chicago. “I think the DBs last week started that off. I think they played a very solid game holding that down for us. So we definitely have to get back and up the energy, up the execution. Just get back what we were missing.
“Kyler was out there early. And then BoJack was out the next game. Just getting everybody back, we have to come back and we have to start that click. We don’t have time for any more mess-ups or anything like that. We’ve got that all out the way. We have to come back and execute at a high level.”
The good news is the Bears won’t have to face Vikings star receiver Justin Jefferson, who landed on IR with a hamstring injury. But there are still some weapons to contend with in the passing game, including rookie Jordan Addison, K.J. Osborn and T.J. Hockenson.
We’ll see if the return of some key starters in the secondary can serve as a boost for this defense as Chicago looks to stack back-to-back wins.