Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts will hold joint practices on August 19 and 20

For the first time since 2004, the Chicago Bears will hold a practice with another NFL team. On August 19th and 20th in Indianapolis, the Bears will practice with the Colts. The Bears and Colts play in a preseason game on Saturday, August 22nd, so this will probably be a nice mini-road trip for the Bears.

From the Bears' website.

"We felt this was a good opportunity to work against an excellent team that has been to the playoffs the past three years," said Bears coach John Fox.

"The timing worked well in terms of where it fit into our schedule. The guys like it as a change-up to what they have been doing the prior three weeks and the competition increases at practice as a result. It will help us with our preparation and evaluation of the team."

The joint practices will not be open to the public.

The August 22nd contest is the 2nd preseason game for both teams, so it's doubtful we'll see the starters go much more past the 2nd quarter.

The Colts haven't held a joint practice since 2000.

Here are some of Indianapolis head coach Chuck Pagano's thoughts on the practices.

"You get tired of beating on one another during training camp, so to have an opportunity, if you can find somebody that'll work with you and want to do some work against you, it's a great change of pace," Pagano said on Tuesday when asked about the possibility of joint practices.

"Plus you get to see from a schematic standpoint maybe a different offense, a different defense from alignment standpoint. If you're going against an odd front the entire time or whatever, it gives you an opportunity to maybe go against a different look and some different players. I'm definitely a proponent of it."

For those wondering, both the Bears and Colts run a 3-4 defense and Indy's offense is a version of the West Coast offense, while the Bears will run something similar to the Mike Martz offense.