Four days after playing 79 snaps against the Vikings, Roquan Smith is ready to go again Thursday night against the Commanders at Soldier Field.
“I love it,” Smith said. “It’s national TV — so if the body hurts a little bit, you’ve got a lot more eyes on you, so you can show what you can do.”
While baseball is America’s pastime, football is America’s addiction. And Thursday Night Football is another great example of that distinction. Playing on three days rest doesn’t seem like a good idea for a sport that has become more unsafe to play than ever.
But the criticism it draws doesn’t seem to matter. Once the whistle blows for the opening kickoff, it’s football. Former Seahawks All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman was the loudest voice against Thursday Night Football, criticizing it as “ludicrous” and “hypocritical” in The Players’ Tribune in 2016. He’s now a featured member of Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football broadcast team.
So a 25-year-old star player on a contract year like Smith, who already has played through a hip injury this year, probably doesn’t need any more wear-and-tear than a 17-game season already creates. But it’s football. Bring it on.
You have to give Smith credit. He’s got a lot on the line this season after being unable to get a long-term contract with the Bears. But the kid in him wins out every time. He’s not into making “business decisions” when he’s hurt. And the chance to play trumps the risk of injury every time.
“I just think it’s a great opportunity,” Smith said. “Mind over matter. My body actually feels pretty good. I’m locked and loaded and ready to go. If we had to go right now — me and you — I like me.”
The game against the Commanders will be a test of Eberflus’ preparation. The first-year coach, a staunch believer in practicing hard to play hard, has cut back on practices for the last two weeks in anticipation of the short week. The Bears focused on film work to prepare for the Commanders.
“I’ll feel good mentally,” rookie defensive end Dominique Robinson said. “We watch film here, but they put it on us to watch a lot at home. So we got our iPads to do that and I feel pretty prepared this week.”
But Eberflus threw an interesting twist into the schedule. After walk-throughs on Monday and Tuesday, the Bears practiced Wednesday at the Payton Center, a day before the game — a rare occurrence in the NFL.
“We needed that,” defensive end Trevis Gipson said. “It sort of gets us back in the groove of things. If we wouldn’t have done anything physical, we probably would have dome out lackadaisical and sluggish. It was good.”
The Bears’ defense can’t afford to come out sluggishly. After allowing touchdown drives of 86, 75 and 71 yards on the Vikings’ first three possessions Sunday, the defense is determined to start fast. What Smith called mind over matter might actually be motivation over matter.
It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out. Last week’s Thursday Night Game between the Broncos and Colts was an embarrassment of shoddy play — and that was with two of the most prolific quarterbacks of this generation in Russell Wilson and Matt Ryan.
“I didn’t watch it, but football is football,” Gipson said. “In the NFL, it’s about six plays in a game that can determine whether you win or lose. It really doesn’t matter who’s playing. It might be a boring game or however you want to put it, but it’s still a competition game — to me, at least.
“I love to play football and I’m looking forward to it. As far as the short week, I think we’re excited. We’e got the new orange helmets popping out. I think it’s going to be a fun experience.”
