LAKE FOREST — Last season the Packers were ravaged by injuries, filling the injured-reserve list with 15 players throughout the course of the year. They even lost a star on each side of the ball (Charles Woodson and Donald Driver) by halftime of the Super Bowl.

Did it set them back?

“No way,” said Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews, who was part of that 2010 Super Bowl title run.

This year it’s the Bears who have been beset by injuries, the most costly of which was the broken thumb of Jay Cutler and the sprained knee on Matt Forte.

Did they lose any steam because of injuries?

“Well,” Bears center Roberto Garza recently said, “I guess you could say they’ve knocked us back a bit.”

So why did the mounds of injuries not slow down the Packers, but they turned the Bears from a title contender into a team besieged by a four-game losing streak? Packers head coach Mike McCarthy insists his squad was able to sustain the barrage of setbacks because of the way it built its roster depth.

“I couldn’t really give you an informed opinion on how the Bears are handling their injury situation, but I know that for us, something you always want to feel strongly about is your roster. And how you train your players from one through 53 is part of the ability to overcome these types of injuries,” McCarthy explained. “We try to spend as much time as we possibly can with our younger players to make sure that when these situations arise, they’re ready to go.”

It worked well for them last year, and they may need that depth again this year. The Packers were fairly healthy throughout much of this season, but they have stumbled on hard times of late. This week alone they added rookie tackle Derek Sherrod to the injured-reserve list, bringing it up to six players, and they have already ruled out tackles Bryan Bulaga and Chad Clifton, wide receiver Greg Jennings and defensive end Ryan Pickett.

And all of this comes on the heels of the team’s first loss — a 19-14 defeat to the struggling Chiefs.

“There’s never such a thing as a good loss,” Matthews said, “but there’s definitely things you can take away from a loss, as far as how we need to play and respond moving forward into the playoffs.”

If they move forward the way they did last year — when the injuries piled up and they rattled off six straight wins capped off by a Super Bowl championship — they’ll be fine. The Bears can only hope they can pull something like that off as well.

“It’s very important to get all of our starters back out there,” Bears head coach Lovie Smith said this week. “No matter what, we’re going to have more guys than we would like on the sideline for a game like this.”

His offensive coordinator likened it to a mash unit as he looked for ways to figure out who all the new guys are.
“We’re going to put names on tape and put them on their helmets so we can get to know everybody,” Mike Martz said with a chuckle.

But the Bears have not been laughing about their injury situation much of late. Not only did they lose Cutler and Forte during their best seasons as a pro, but they just added wide receiver Johnny Knox and safety Chris Conte to IR, and they have a slew of questionable players this week. Stars in all phases (defensive tackle Henry Melton, running back Marion Barber and kick returner Devin Hester) could be missing from the Bears’ active roster Sunday in Green Bay.

And, at this most inopportune time, the Bears are turning to third-string QB Josh McCown, a recent free-agent pickup who is considered injury prone even by his own coaches.

“Unfortunately,” Martz said, “in his career, when he’s gotten going, he’s usually gotten injured or nicked.”

If he does this time, he will join a long list. Chicago currently has eight players on injured reserve, after having only two make that grade last year. And that’s not counting the two most severe losses: Cutler and Forte, who have not yet been ruled out for the year.

The Bears are clearly nervous. The Packers feel a little bit more at ease with their issues after they ignored them so well last year. But that doesn’t mean they’re not worried about it, like the Bears.

“It’s a situation everybody goes through. We had a bunch of injuries last year, and we understand how it feels and really the approach you need to take,” McCarthy added. “You don’t want to get injuries, you especially don’t want to get injuries down the stretch, but that’s part of our challenge preparing for the Bears.”

And this year, it’s part of the challenge for the Bears as well.

Jay Taft covers the Chicago Bears for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at 815-987-1384 or jtaft@rrstar.com.

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Quarterback Josh McCown will start an NFL game for the first time in four years when he lines up behind centre for the Bears at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night.

The Bears said Wednesday that McCown will replace the struggling Caleb Hanie. McCown hasn’t started a game since Dec. 23, 2007, for Oakland against Jacksonville. He was completely out of the NFL last season.

“Other than just the excitement and the joy of being between the stripes with the lights on again, I think that first snap obviously will be exciting,” McCown said.

The excitement for McCown, who threw two passes last week in a late relief role and eight passes total since his last start, will be tempered by the fact that the Bears’ playoff hopes will end if they lose.

“So I don’t want to get too excited and too amped up because for me, absolutely it’s a cool story and cool moment, but at the same time, I’m a competitor,” he said. “I want to win the game. I want to do right by the coaches and by the other 52 guys in the locker room.”

About five weeks ago, McCown was more concerned with coaching high school football than starting an NFL game.

Then quarterback Jay Cutler broke his thumb against San Diego on Nov. 20, when the Bears owned a 7-3 record. Hanie started four straight games and lost all of them, throwing nine interceptions as the Bears’ offence got into the end zone only four times.

“We just felt like we needed a boost,” coach Lovie Smith said. “Caleb had played four games. I felt like that was enough to prove who you are and if you could help our team win. No more than that.

“Josh has been around, knows our offence, has been working against our defence for a long period of time. He’s a veteran. And again we’re just trying to give ourselves the best chance to win the game and we feel that’s the direction we need to go.”

McCown played for some struggling teams, and had a 12-19 record as a starter in Arizona in 2003-05 and in 2007 at Oakland. He has a career passing rating of 70.9, with 35 touchdown passes and 41 interceptions while completing 57.6 per cent of his passes (611 of 1,060 for 6,596 yards).

Smith admitted he was basing the decision more on what Hanie hadn’t done than what McCown could do.

“I haven’t seen a lot from Josh,” he said. “Sometimes if you don’t like what you have, you have to look at your other options. We just have to have faith that we can play better, that we can do some things to help (McCown) out a little bit more, people around him can play a little bit better.”

In 2006, McCown played backup quarterback for Detroit under current Bears offensive co-ordinator Mike Martz, which was a key reason the Bears brought him in after Cutler’s injury rather than sign a free agent like Donovan McNabb.

“He’s a better passer right now than when I had him,” Martz said of McCown. “He’s mechanically a lot more consistent. He always had a terrific arm. He’s always been able to do some things with his legs, too. He’s a terrific athlete. In fact he played wide receiver for us one year.”

McCown, who is six-foot-four, got on the field as a situational receiver on occasion for Detroit in 2006.

Martz said the preseason played a major role in the Bears going to McCown rather than starting rookie fifth-round pick Nathan Enderle.

“The problem with Nate is, Caleb didn’t have preseason a year ago, he got injured and we spent all our time with Caleb in the pre-season,” Martz said. “So Nate didn’t get a whole lot of work. It’s just too much of an unknown right now. We’re trying to win so, he’ll have his time, I’m sure. But right now this is our best opportunity to win.”

McCown will be wary Sunday of a Packers defence that thrives on turnovers, especially defensive back Charles Woodson, who is tied for the league lead with seven interceptions.

“So we’ll know where he’s at,” McCown said. “He’s been a very good player for a long time and he’s one of the smartest players you’re going to play against.”

McCown said he probably didn’t appreciate his opportunity to start enough earlier in his career.

“But for me this time around it is definitely about business and just about going and competing and helping your team win and enjoying every opportunity you can to go out there and play,” he said. “If you’ve learned anything I think it’s that you appreciate the value of having a job and of going to work and getting to go spend time at work and be around the guys.”

After throwing three times as many interceptions (nine) as touchdowns (three) in his four-game stretch as the starter, Caleb Hanie has been benched. The Chicago Bears will go forward for the remainder of the season with Josh McCown under center.

Hanie completed 50 percent of his passes for 613 yards with a quarterback rating of 41.8. With him in charge, the team went 11 for 50 on third downs, which never allowed the offense to get in rhythm and put up points consistently. Hanie’s accuracy was lacking, but it was his decision-making that compelled Chicago’s coaches to sit him.

McCown now takes over. He has played for four teams prior to Chicago, including a stint in Detroit under coordinator Mike Martz in 2006. Having familiarity with Martz’s offense was one of the main reasons the Bears signed him two weeks ago. We’ll now get to see how comfortable he still is with the scheme.

“It’s not ideal to come in this late,” McCown said Wednesday. “But at the same time, as a competitor, you understand where the other guys are at. You’ve got to get yourself up to speed and ready to play. Everybody expects you just to go play and play well. That’s the expectation for myself also — just to go out and do things to help us win the football game.

“If I keep looking back and saying, ‘I only got here six weeks ago,’ then it becomes an excuse [and] I think you leave an area for you not to play well because you’re leaving something to fall back on. I’m trying to refuse to do that and just say, ‘You know what, you have to play well. The team’s depending on you.’ That’s my stance.”

For his career, McCown has completed 611 of 1,060 pass attempts (57.6 percent) for 6,596 yards, 35 touchdowns and 41 interceptions. He last started an NFL game in 2007 with the Oakland Raiders. On Sunday, he’ll be thrust into one of the most difficult situations for any Bears quarterback: a road game at Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers.

“You can’t be anything but excited,” McCown said of the rivalry. “To get to be a part of that in this atmosphere, I’m very excited. I’m very thankful. It’s a great opportunity to go play and have fun, to play on Christmas and all that. Absolutely it’s neat.”

Follow me on Twitter: @BearReport

LAKE FOREST — If the Bears were lucky last year, they are certainly paying for it this season.

It was well documented that the Bears caught break after break last season as they rolled all the way to the NFC championship game. They basically suffered no key injuries, while their opponents were constantly downgraded due to breaks and sprains just before facing off with the Bears. The schedule parted for Chicago like the Red Sea, setting up easy matchups all the way through. The fact that they opened the playoffs against the only postseason team (Seattle) with a losing record just fit right in to the well-paved road that was 2010.

But this year, karma is biting back.

“Unfortunately,” Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said Friday, “situations arose that have caught us off guard.”
One after another, after another.

It all started in the second week of training camp in Bourbonnais, when a regional power outage forced the Bears to move practice to a different facility midsession. Just a few days later, the condition of the field at Soldier Field was a disgrace, thus causing the cancellation of Family Weekend, and forcing the Bears players and coaches to board a bus back to camp and practice late into the night.

It didn’t seem too bad at the time, but now we see it was just a sign of what was to come.

The offensive line was so disheveled early on that line coach Mike Tice was called upon to work his magic numerous times, changing the alignment four times in the first six weeks, which included the season-ending injury to his No. 1 pick Gabe Carimi. He has brought it all back together each time, but it hasn’t been easy. And the line hasn’t even been the worst of the Bears’ troubles.

Devin Hester’s “biffing” incident in an area casino; veteran safety, and fan favorite, Chris Harris was benched, then waived; Cutler, playing the best ball of his career, broke his thumb while making a tackle after a fluke interception; Forte, leading the league in yards from scrimmage at the time, went down the next week with a sprained knee.

Then they got “Tebowed” so hard Sunday it may have just knocked them out of the playoffs, and Sam Hurd capped it all off by getting busted for trying to start a drug ring in Chicago that would have made Scarface proud.

Whew. Now that’s a season full of adversity.

“Yea, we’ve had our share this year,” Cutler said. “That’s how it works in this league. … One day you’re in great shape, the next you’re down.”

Last year the Bears were one of the healthiest teams in the league, losing starters for only five games while placing just two players (linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer and running Harvey Unga) on injured reserve. This year, they haven’t been so lucky as six players are already on IR and they have lost nearly 30 games to injured starters.

First came linemen Carimi and Chris Williams, then long-snapper and special teams’ captain Patrick Mannelly went down. And this was a young team to start with. There have been 27 different first-year Bears on the roster this year, with eight undrafted free agents trying to slip into the mix.

Chicago tried to retool in certain areas with players like safety Brandon Meriweather and Cowboy-castaway wide receivers Roy Williams and Hurd. I think we all know how those moves turned out.

“That’s how life goes,” Bears head coach Lovie Smith said Friday, shortly before it was announced that Hurd had been waived. “There are life lessons that are being learned here by our football team.”

This year, the Bears have been learning the hard way.

Jay Taft covers the Chicago Bears for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at 815-987-1384 or jtaft@rrstar.com.

Sam Hurd, the former Chicago Bears
wide receiver accused by the U.S. of a drug-trafficking
conspiracy, was freed on $100,000 bail by a federal magistrate.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Young Kim in Chicago today agreed to
a bail terms proposed by Hurd’s lawyer, Brett Greenfield of Los
Angeles, and federal prosecutors. The National Football League
player, who has been in custody since Dec. 14, appeared in court
wearing an orange jumpsuit with his ankles shackled.

Hurd, 26, was arrested with one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of
cocaine in his possession as he exited a Chicago-area restaurant
where he had been negotiating with an undercover federal agent
for a weekly supply of $700,000 in cocaine and marijuana,
prosecutors said.

The charge of conspiracy to possess 500 or more grams of a
cocaine mixture with intent to distribute it carries a maximum
term of 40 years in prison. Hurd hasn’t been arraigned or
entered a plea.

The Bears cut Hurd from the team today. He spent his first
five seasons with the Dallas Cowboys before joining the Bears as
a free agent in July. The San Antonio native, who played at
Northern Illinois University, has eight catches for 109 yards
this season, and 77 receptions for 739 yards for his career.

The criminal complaint against him was filed by prosecutors
in Dallas, where he’s required to appear to answer the charges.
As a condition of his bail, Hurd must also find a job.

The case is U.S. v. Hurd, 11-cr-875, U.S. District Court,
Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).

To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Harris in Chicago at
aharris16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net