Bears at Patriots on Thursday Night: Monangai, Jackson Headline Monday’s Week 7 Injury Reports

A short week leaves no room for maybes, and Monday’s first injury reports for Thursday night’s Chicago Bears–New England Patriots game drew the lines plainly. Both teams held walkthroughs on Monday, so participation was estimated rather than measured, according to the Patriots’ official report on patriots.com. Chicago listed four players as did-not-participate — linebacker T.J. Edwards, offensive lineman Jonah Jackson, running back Kyle Monangai and linebacker Jack Sanborn. New England listed five, including kicker Andy Borregales and cornerback Carlton Davis III. And the two quarterbacks pointed in opposite directions on paper only in the sense that one appeared on the report and one did not: Drake Maye was a full participant for New England, while Caleb Williams was not on Chicago’s report at all.

Start with the name Chicago fans looked for first. Williams’ absence from the report is the news: the Bears’ quarterback is good to go for Thursday night in New England, the first of three straight prime-time games for Chicago, according to Bears Wire’s coverage of Monday’s report. On a short week, with no full-speed practices to hide behind, a clean report for the quarterback is the single most valuable line either team posted on Monday.

Monangai is the Bears’ biggest question

The hardest name on Chicago’s list is Monangai’s. The running back was listed as did-not-participate with thumb and toe injuries, according to the official report, and Heavy reported the fuller picture behind that line: Monangai last played in Week 4, when he ran for 146 yards and two touchdowns against the Jets, and he has 324 rushing yards and three touchdowns in four games this season. He is dealing with turf toe as well as the thumb injury, has not practiced in two weeks, and head coach Ben Johnson has called the situation week-to-week, Heavy reported. SI’s assessment, cited in the same coverage, is that Week 8 at Seattle is the more realistic target for his return than Thursday night — which, on a walkthrough-only Monday with two days until kickoff, is easy to believe.

The other three Bears absences each carry their own weight. Jackson, listed with hip and quadriceps injuries, was hurt on Sunday, according to Bears Wire — the worst possible timing on a short week, with a Thursday game offering almost no recovery window between a Sunday injury and kickoff. Edwards is managing a hamstring injury, the kind of soft-tissue problem short weeks are cruelest to, and Sanborn is in the concussion protocol, which has its own independent timeline that no schedule can hurry. Chicago listed no players as limited on Monday; the Bears’ only full participants of note were linebacker Keyshaun Elliott and defensive back Tyrique Stevenson Sr., per the official report.

New England’s list is longer, but its quarterback is fine

The Patriots’ did-not-participate list ran five deep, according to patriots.com: Borregales (personal), offensive lineman Ben Brown (knee), Davis (neck), defensive tackle Joshua Farmer (personal) and guard Alijah Vera-Tucker (hamstring). Two of the five are personal absences rather than injuries, which can resolve on a very different clock. The football concerns are Davis’ neck — a starting cornerback is not a small thing to lose on any week, let alone a short one — and Vera-Tucker’s hamstring on the offensive line.

New England’s limited list matters almost as much: wide receiver A.J. Brown (ankle), tackle Morgan Moses (foot) and cornerbacks Channing Canada and Karon Prunty (both hamstring), per the official report. Brown’s ankle bears watching because of what he means to the Patriots’ passing game, and two limited cornerbacks on the same report as a non-participating Davis makes the secondary the Patriots’ thinnest spot heading into Tuesday. Against that, the most important line on either report belongs to New England: Maye, listed with a right shoulder issue, was a full participant in Monday’s walkthrough, according to patriots.com. Full participation on a Monday walkthrough does not end the conversation, but it starts the week in the right place.

Maye was not New England’s only full participant, either, and the rest of that list reads like a depth chart exhaling: running back TreVeyon Henderson (ankle), safety Kevin Byard III (chest), tackle Will Campbell (knee), linebacker Christian Elliss (chest), tackle Marcus Bryant (ankle), linebacker Dre’Mont Jones (shoulder) and safety Craig Woodson (shoulder) were all listed as full participants on the official report. For a team whose non-participant and limited lists ran nine names deep, a full-participation column that long — starting with the quarterback — is the counterweight that keeps Monday’s report from reading as a crisis.

What a Monday walkthrough report can and cannot say

A word of caution that applies to every name above: Monday was a walkthrough for both teams, and the Patriots’ official report states plainly that Chicago’s participation was an estimation. These designations are the league’s best Monday information, not final answers. Tuesday and Wednesday bring the reports that actually decide Thursday’s inactives, and on a short week the movement between Monday’s estimation and Wednesday’s game-status designations is where the real story will be written — particularly for Jackson, hurt only Sunday, for Monangai, two weeks removed from his last practice, and for Davis and Vera-Tucker in New England.

For now, the shape of Thursday night is this: both quarterbacks are on track to play, Chicago’s backfield and offensive line are the game’s biggest injury questions, and New England’s secondary is its own. Kickoff in New England will answer the rest.