The Chicago Bears finalized their 53-man roster yesterday. However, teams are allowed to add eight players to the practice squad if they did not make the cut. We heard names of players who may be added to the practice squad over the past few days, but the Bears announced the eight players today.
Practice Squad additions:
1) RB Armando Allen: Allen was on the Bears practice squad last year and was activated for two games. If Allen played nine games last year, he would not be eligible to be signed to the practice squad this year. To be honest, I thought Allen would make the team over Lorenzo Booker. I thought he looked better than Booker, but maybe the coaching staff saw differently. Maybe the Bears knew they could sign Allen to the practice squad and wanted to end up keeping both running backs because Booker would have not been signed to the practice squad.
2) RB Harvey Unga: It seems like Unga is always on the Bears, but not on the active 53-man roster. Unga is more of a fullback and may have been the main reason the Bears added him since the Bears have no fullbacks on the 53-man roster. The main reason Unga was probably released was due to the fact he missed a block when the Bears were punting. The guy went right past him and blocked the punt.
3) QB Matt Blanchard: I’m surprised no teams picked him up and he slipped to the Bears practice squad. He looked pretty good in preseason when he played. He’s good insurance for the Bears if a QB goes down since they terminated the contract of Josh McCown.
4) WR Joe Anderson: I didn’t see Anderson play, so I don’t know how well he did in preseason. I would rather have Chris Summers on the practice squad because he looked pretty good. However, Summers was getting interest around the league and may have decided not to sign with the Bears because he’s looking for a better opportunity to play.
5) CB Isaiah Frey: Frey was drafted by the Bears in the late round of this year’s draft. I also didn’t see him play much as he probably didn’t get too much playing time. We did hear yesterday that he was going to be added to the practice squad.
6) OL Cory Brandon: He’s probably another OL to not look into too much. If he couldn’t make the team over the guys on the 53-man roster, that can’t be that great. I guess it’s always good to have an extra who can be added if a player struggles or is injured.
7) OL James Brown: Just like Brandon, more if an ‘in case’ move. To be honest, I thought Brandon or Brown would have made the team and I had Brown making the team. That doesn’t mean anything, since he’s an OL and the Bears can never find a good one.
DL Aston Whiteside: I’m not going to lie, but I don’t know anything about Whiteside. Since he didn’t play much and wasn’t in the news feed, I think he just got overlooked and maybe he will produce if he needs to.
Other news:
*The Bears may have to make another roster move soon with the signing of Amobi Okoye. He’s taking a physical today and if he passes, the signing will become official. His plane was delayed today due to the weather in Chicago.
*The New Orleans Saints have signed OL Ricky Henry to their practice squad. The Bears waived Henry yesterday.
*Khalil Bell had a workout with the New England Patriots recently. If you don’t recall, the Bears cut loose Bell because he didn’t want to take a $500,000 pay cut.
Now that most of the roster moves are finished … time to focus of the regular season!
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