Bears' injuries: bad luck or trend?
The same day Lovie Smith said Tommie Harris was injured, Jerry Angelo said he was healthy. Then Harris sat out Sunday's game against the Bengals. Lovie Smith said he wasn't hurt, but he had soreness and hadn't practiced all week.
Is Harris hurt or not? The only thing anybody seems to know about Harris is that he hasn't been the same player since he got hurt -- which leads to a question that more people should be asking around Halas Hall: why have the Bears had so much trouble rehabilitating injuries in the Jerry Angelo era?
(Jon Sall/Sun-Times)
PHOTO GALLERY
Wounded Bears
Harris, a three-time Pro Bowl tackle, is the lastest Bears player to confound us with an injury that is all too typical of the Angelo era: the player takes longer than expected to recover; the player gets injured again; or the player is a shell of his former self.
Harris has been all three. He had surgery to repair a torn left hamstring in December of 2006 -- missing the Super Bowl -- and before he had fully recovered from that he suffered another injury when he was leg-whipped by the Cowboys' Marc Colombo in 2007. That wouldn't have happened if Colombo had not been cut by the Bears in 2005 -- Angelo gave up on him because he never fully recovered from multiple surgeries from a mysteriously complicated dislocated kneecap.
Six weeks after being cut by the Bears, Colombo signed with Dallas and Bill Parcells. Three weeks after that Colombo was playing special teams for the Cowboys. And in 2006, Colombo earned the starting job at left tackle and has played in 54 consecutive games -- for an offense that has ranked in the top 10 in the NFL in total offense in three of his four seasons. If he wasn't healthy enough for the Bears, how did he get so healthy with the Cowboys?
Is it coincidence? Just bad luck for the Bears and Angelo? Take a look at some of the other injured Bears and see how many coincidences it takes to become a trend: CLICK HERE for more "Wounded Bears"