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Bears DT Bilal Nichols broke hand, won’t go on IR

The second-year DT left Sunday’s game and didn’t return.

NFL: SEP 05 Packers at Bears Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Second-year defensive tackle Bilal Nichols has a broken hand, according to head coach Matt Nagy, but Nichols will avoid going on to the injured reserve list.

Nichols left the game Sunday against the Denver Broncos and didn’t return, he was later seen in the locker room by reporters with a cast on, but Nagy initially said that it was a wrist injury but that the team would know more over the next couple of days.

Well now at his Thursday press conference he confirmed that it was a broken hand.

Without announcing a timetable, it would be expected that Nichols will miss a few games, at least, but last season Leonard Floyd played with a club on his broken hand for the first month or so of the season, but was less effective.

Nichols recorded three sacks last season as a rookie fifth-round pick out of Delaware and was seen as a rising star. He started the first two games this season. Roy Robertson-Harris, who is also off to a hot start, will assume the starting role.