The Bears last year fought through a Rome Odunze injury and even one to Luther Burden down the stretch during the regular season.

They could be doing it again with Odunze after he failed to return to practice Monday following a leg injury of unknown severity and type suffered back on Thursday.

They're well-situated to handle it again, if the new norm is that their third-year receiver is injured and out. Although, no one can be certain yet that they will need to do this. Odunze didn't just miss a very brief and non-padded practice on Monday, he wasn't even at the practice field. This can't be good, although it's always possible there were numerous circumstances to cause this absence besides a right leg injury he had at Thursday's practice.

The actual injury report comes out on Wednesday and the Bears are not practicing on that day. The Bears will practice Tuesday and coach Ben Johnson is scheduled to talk to the media then, and also when the final injury report comes out on Friday.

So, Odunze's situation should be more clear by Tuesday afternoon, although his game status won't be until Friday.

Either way, the Bears are far from sunk without Odunze. They had plenty of experience playing without him after he missed five games in 2025.

For one, they have Jahdae Walker and he filled in well at this position in Monday's practice. Caleb Williams had said Walker is the one Bears player whose mouth never stops going and apparently he can do more than talk. Walker had only six regular-season catches in 86 plays as an undrafted rookie last year but made big receptions late in the season.

At 6-3, 205, he supplies some of the size they lose without Odunze out of the lineup. He also supplies something else and that's juice.

Kalif Raymond laughed about it last week when recalling how Walker was jacked up and hollering at the end of the joint practice with Tennessee when everyone else couldn't wait for a physical workout in the heat to end.

"I mean, if you love a game, then Jahdae is infectious," Raymond said. "And then that plus I'm saying this, we had a drill at the end of practice (Thursday), everybody's tired. And Jahdae is making plays. I mean, he kept that drill going at the end.

"So, an infectious energy like that, I mean, you watch him on special teams, it's like that's my receiver right there. It's so cool watching him go. But it's infectious. It brings the game back to what you enjoy being around a player like that, and then watching that infectious personality go and make plays, it gets everybody hyped."

Beyond Walker, the Bears are better prepared to handle an absence because they have a group of receivers who get cross-trained at all the positions and now have been in the offense more than a season. Also, tight end Colston Loveland can handle some of the wide receiver routes if asked. That's another taller presence who can line up inside or outside.

There's enough crossover where everybody can do a little bit of everything. Just because Kalif's the smallest guy in the room doesn't mean we're not going to throw Kalif outside the numbers and let him run one-on-one routes as well, because it's a different look than what you get when you get Rome or Luther, like you're saying, and even (TE) Colston (Loveland). All these guys are so versatile. They can do so many different things.

The Bears were only 2-3 in games they played without Odunze last year and 10-4 when he played. They were 3-2 against teams with winning records when Odunze played.

The wild card in all of this is Zavion Thomas. If they can have him up and running for enough of the offense as a rookie in his first game, his extreme speed can challenge deep or open up underneath routes for other receivers.

The other reason the Bears can replace Odunze rather easily is Ben Johnson's passing game is not X-receiver based. It's run through the slot and the move-tight end, meaning Burden and Loveland.

Replacing Loveland might be more of a challenge for the Bears at this point because of his rare size/athleticism/speed to go with his pass-catching skills.

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