Amid an offseason in which players across the league have been busted for violating the NFL’s gambling policy, NFL officials are traveling from team-to-team to team to give refresher courses. Bears players and coaches met with a representative of the NFL’s compliance office Wednesday at Halas Hall, one day before they broke camp for the summer.
“It was a great message from them,” head coach Matt Eberflus said Thursday. “It was real simple. It had six points of what to do, what not to do, and it was really good.”
The six points, according to a league source, were:
1. Don’t bet on NFL games.
2. Don’t have anyone place a bet for you.
3. Don’t gamble — on sports or card games or anything else — while at the team facility, bus, charter flight, hotel or while traveling for league business.
4. Don’t share inside information about the team to gamblers, or anyone else.
5. Don’t enter a sportsbook during the NFL season.
6. Don’t play daily fantasy football.
Players are allowed to gamble in states in which it’s legal, so long as it’s in their free time and not on an NFL game. They can play yearly fantasy sports so long as the prize does not exceed $250.
Gambling policy education is mandatory for all players, and doing so in-person — as opposed to watching a training video — is strongly encouraged by the league office. Rookies must watch an additional training video.
Marching orders
Bears director of performance Brent Salazar, strength and conditioning coach Jim Arthur and sports nutrition director Blair Hitchcock each are sending Bears players home with marching orders for the next 40 days off. The Bears have set weights and body fat percentage minimums they expect each player to meet upon their return for training camp.
Eberflus said the Bears want their players to be in good shape upon entering camp — to “raise that floor up in terms of their conditioning” — to hopefully avoid soft tissue injuries when workouts ramp up in late July.
This and that
• Eberflus singled out two rookies as potential under-the-radar players thus far this offseason: fourth-round pick Roschon Johnson, a Texas running back, and fifth-round pick Terrel Smith, a cornerback from Minnesota.
Smith missed mandatory minicamp with an undisclosed injury.
“I was really excited about where [Smith] is, and he’s going to get back to where he needs to be, for sure,” he said. “Ro, the halfback, has done a great job of picking things up. I’m excited to see him in pads because I think he’s really going to take off once we get the pads on.”
• The Bears will release their training camp schedule in the coming days, Eberflus said. The report date for veterans is expected to be July 25. The Bears are expected to hold joint training camp practices with the Colts in Indianapolis before their August exhibition game.
• Tight end Robert Tonyan made a gorgeous juggling touchdown catch in practice, batting a Justin Fields pass with one hand and catching it with another while running across the back of the end zone.
