NFL Trade Rumors
Bears HC Ben Johnson admitted that the offense will constantly evolve as the season goes on.
“And to be honest with you, we might have to ebb and flow a little bit after that opening game,” Johnson said, via ESPN. “Usually, it’ll take up until the bye week. I think it’s placed at just the right time (Week 5) to really identify who we are and what we’re going to be for the rest of the season.”
Packers QB Jordan Love is still wearing a brace on his non-throwing hand after undergoing surgery on his left thumb. Love doesn’t have any concerns about his thumb or using a brace going into Week 1.
“It’ll be some weeks having to brace it up and just keep it protected,” Love said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN. “It’s one of those things, we’ll play it by ear, as I start getting into games and seeing how it feels, as you get back to live contact. But there’ll be some time having that brace still.”
Love explained why he decided to undergo surgery instead of playing through the issue, saying it was already a “limp thumb” and had no stability.
“If you have no stability there, you have no strength as well,” Love said. “So it was pretty much just a limp thumb. I couldn’t really do much with it, and it’s just something that I wasn’t, before the season, I’m not trying to be dealing with that throughout the course of the season. Who knows if that would have kept getting reinjured, kept getting messed up, and who knows how that would have been going through a whole season? So I think, and the doctors’ opinion was, just go ahead and get the surgery knocked out and try to get back to as 100 percent as possible for the season.”
Packers GM Brian Gutekunst admitted that Love’s lack of practice with their receivers this offseason hasn’t been ideal, but they have a lot of trust in Love’s ability.
“Between our receivers and him being kind of nicked up, we certainly haven’t had the amount of work that you would have liked,” Gutekunst said. “But there’s a lot of trust there with him as far as getting himself ready to play Week 1.”
The Vikings acquired WR Adam Thielen from the Panthers, reuniting Thielen with the organization he spent the first 10 years of his career with. Minnesota HC Kevin O’Connell said Thielen’s energy is already making an impact in practice.
“Adam’s one of those guys — I think I mentioned it before — I’ve kept in touch with a bunch of players from that team that either moved on that year or maybe even the following year for whatever the reason, whether it’s the business of the NFL or just the truth of the NFL, you don’t ever forget impacts on you like one that I had with Adam Thielen,” O’Connell said, via PFT. *“And there’s so...
