Typically, when a veteran interior lineman misses a mandatory mini-camp practice or few, it’s barely worth mentioning.
No pads. No meaningful games. No worries.
But when you’re Bears RG Nate Davis and you came to Halas Hall in 2023 from Tennessee, baggage in tow, missing most of the June mandatory mini-camp will raise an eyebrow or two.
Especially when your GM just went out and got the shiniest of new toys on offense, and those toys need the line to hold-up long enough to let these new toys play in the open field.
What’s the baggage?
A couple reports.
1 – ESPN Chicago’s “The Chicago Bears Podcast,” with Pat the Designer: Pat the Designer that when the Titans let Nate Davis go in 2023 and head coach Mike Vrabel was asked, Vrabel said he liked guys to practice.
Courtney Cronin confirmed when talking to him at the owners meeting that their “body language” implied practice habits (or lack there of) contributed to the axing.
2 – TitansWire.USAToday.Com: Writer Mike Moraitis noted via X / Twitter that Windy City Gridiron’s Bill Zimmerman had a source close to Vrabel who provided Vrabel’s take on Davis: “Vrabel hates him.”
Yeah. I know. It sounds a bit like schoolyard gossip.
Sally told Stacy who told Mandy who told Mary what Bobby did with Susie on the playground last week…
But there’s not much else out there to go on. Today.
Davis missed (quite) a few games in 2023
Davis did miss 6 full games last year.
He lost Weeks 2 and 3 due to a death in the family.
Early in the Week 6 game against the Vikings, Davis injured his right ankle when then-QB Justin Fields was driven back into him. He only participated in 15% of the snaps played.
Davis proceeded to miss the next four games, returning in week 11.
He also went out early in week 18 vs. Green Bay with a foot injury. He only participated in 27% of the snaps played that game.
All in all, Davis missed about 44.5% of the Bears offensive snaps in 2023.
Cobble those facts together…
And the last thing any fellow Bears fan wants to see is Davis missing mini-camps due to, at this point, undisclosed reasons.
If Nate Davis can’t start at RG for the Bears
The Bears had new FA signee Ryan Bates covering the RG spot, and other recent signee Coleman Shelton covering Center during the mini camp. Most I’ve read and heard expect that if this is the set-up coming training camp in Bourbonnais, then Davis could be on the outside looking in, and in purgatory until the Bears can cut him and only take a $2mm hit next year.
But, today, it’s June.
And we hope Davis had an injury that kept him safely on the bike, saving himself for when the pads get put on in July.