Whether or not Lance Briggs gets medically cleared to play Sunday night he will not be the Lance Briggs you know and love. He hasn’t played in 8 weeks. He’s not Lance Briggs as you would define Lance Briggs, 8 time Pro Bowler. But that’s fine. Because any version of Lance Briggs is fine at this point, when you have the run defense ranked dead last in the NFL. And you’re facing the leading rusher in the league in LeSean McCoy.
Lance Briggs practiced with the 1s on Thursday but he was also limited in practiced. What does that mean? I have no idea. Bears Coach Marc Trestman has the answers, and I’m not sure anyone else does at this point. When you face the #1 rushing offense in the NFL, you certainly needs all hands on deck. Period. And Briggs has a serious injury no doubt. But we were told he’d come back in 4-6 weeks. And on his show on CSN that four whole people watch Lance said that it could be three weeks. Yet here we are, since October 20th, no Lance Briggs.
Of course, the whole point of this is how much Lance Briggs matters to this defense. And how much #55 truly matters to this defense
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the country; with regular weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS Catch him Tuesdays talking Illini and Northwestern for KOZN 1620 The Zone, Fridays talking Chicago Bears for WAOR 95.7 The Fan