Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

November 29, 2018 at 2:10 am.

If QB Daniel plays, he’ll have practice this time

Chase Daniel looks at his two-touchdown, 230-yard passing effort in last week’s 23-16 win for the Chicago Bears over the Detroit Lions and sees room for improvement, even though he had no practice time.

“I’m a perfectionist so what I try to do is look at the negatives of the game and try to improve on it,” Daniel said. “And there were 10 incompletions; some of those should’ve been completions. Four sacks; too many, those were all on me.”

It’s looking like he may get the chance to improve on it, and this time he’s getting to practice.

The Bears (8-3) will go late into the week and possibly even until right before Sunday’s game against the New York Giants (3-8) before making a decision on their starting quarterback.

Injured starter Mitchell Trubisky is more active now than last week, but still did not go through a full practice on Wednesday. He got on the practice field, but didn’t throw and participated sparingly in the individual portion of practice. Officially he was listed as limited in practice.

So Daniel is proceeding as if he’ll start against a Giants defense ranked No. 23 overall. And he appreciates the opportunity to practice, considering last week he played with only two walk-throughs for a Thursday game.

“It’ll be good, to actually get some timing down with the receivers and tight ends and running backs, although I thought it was pretty good last week, too, for not really taking a full-speed rep all week.”

Head coach Matt Nagy was impressed by what his backup could do with no preparation.

“I think that it could definitely help him out,” Nagy said. “So if that’s the route we end up going, rep-wise he’s going to get more reps, versus what he went through. That was hard. That was all mental.

“And then you go into the game and now we’re expecting guys to be throwing great accurate passes all over the field. And I don’t know if that’s necessarily realistic.”

Nagy said the decision on a starter revolves entirely around Trubisky’s shoulder on game day or this week, and not on who the Bears are facing. Next week they go from a game against the 3-8 Giants to a game against the 10-1 Los Angeles Rams and it would seem reasonable to think the Bears would rest Trubisky another week to make sure he’s 100 percent healthy to face the Rams.

“That’s where it’s different for us, players and coaches, is every one of these games is just so important,” Nagy said. ‘Give me everybody. I want everybody out there and I don’t care what the situation is.

“If you start (deciding based on opponents), you’re going to be in trouble and that’s not something we’re going to do.”

The right shoulder injury to Trubisky occurred Nov. 18 at the end of the game against the Minnesota Vikings.

When Daniel was getting ready to play last week without a practice, there was plenty of concern whether he could be ready.

Now, the questions are how prepared Trubisky would be if he goes without practices and a decision on the starter goes right up until game time.

“He really hasn’t been in this situation,” Nagy said. “I feel like the time that he’s put in this season with the reps that he’s had, it helps him for being prepared if (with) the decision that we end up going his way. I’m not concerned. You want to make sure that whatever you’re doing it’s not foreign to him, whether it’s reps with routes, etc.

“Just because he’s been playing and has had time this year, it wouldn’t be that much of a concern.”

At least Nagy knows he can count on Daniel, who had been a backup at Kansas City during Nagy’s days as an assistant there from 2013-15.

“But for my history with Chase and the relationship that I have with him, he’s always been almost like a little bit of an assistant coach to us as well,” Nagy said. “He’s been great at that, so now here’s a guy who in his role is fulfilling not only that quote/unquote assistant coach part, but a guy that has the ability to step in and make coaches feel very comfortable that you can win games with him at quarterback.”

SERIES HISTORY: 51st regular-season game. Bears lead series, 28-20-2. The Giants won the last meeting 22-16 in 2016. The Giants have won three of the last four and the last two at home. The last win by the Bears over the Giants on the road came in 2006, 38-20. In addition, there have been six playoff games between the teams starting with the 1933 championship game, won by the Bears 23-21. The teams have split six postseason games.