We all remember the confusion and mayhem during the Roddy White touchdown play, in which Chicago linebacker Nick Roach seemed to not know up from down. Today, Jeff Dickerson lets us in on a little more detail from that play.
The confusion on the field -- especially on the Roddy White touchdown -- was because of a delay in receiving the call from the sidelines, not an error by the middle linebacker. If the situation arises again in the future, Roach may opt simply to make a call on his own. But he is still learning the position, and people shouldn't expect Roach to turn into Brian Urlacher overnight. Urlacher had carte blanche to change on the fly, but Roach has played only two-plus games in the middle.
I don't know how quickly Roach is catching on to all of the nuances of playing MLB for the Bears, but I do know he has been playing very aggressively. During his first two starts, he's the leading tackler on defense.
On a couple of side notes, yesterday was Hunter Hillenmeyer's first day back to practice since the Seattle game, but he was limited. Well, today he had full participation.
Tommie Harris, on the other hand, missed his second straight practice. I heard Jerry Angelo on the radio this morning talking about Harris, and he basically said that Harris' health is not an issue. He said that Tommie is healthy, and still has all the tools, he just has to make plays. He said that the Bears would continue to coach Harris, and continue to monitor him. Whatever that means.