Bear Necessities: Bears ready for joint practices with Dolphins

This is our online morning newsletter, Bear Necessities. Subscribe to get the latest Bears news delivered to your mailbox every day.

Before the Bears kick off the preseason against the Dolphins on Saturday, Chicago host Miami at Halas Hall for a couple of joint practices leading up to game day.

It’ll be a welcome change for the Bears, who have been practicing against themselves for the first two weeks of training camp.

“Our guys are so used to seeing the same stuff — offense and defense, they’re seeing all the same players, the same plays, the same techniques and how you do things,” coach Matt Nagy said. “It’s a total changeup now. Somebody’s going to have a different move coming off the edge. So that part is great.”

Chicago is certainly no stranger to being a part of joint practices — as they’ve traveled for joint practices with the Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots and Denver Broncos since 2015.

But these upcoming joint practices with the Dolphins will be unlike any others they’ve participated in before during this COVID-19 time, where safety protocols will be enforced. Although Nagy isn’t concerned about hosting the Dolphins even as they arrive from a COVID-19 hotspot in Florida.

These joint practices will be a welcome change of pace and beneficial for both teams ahead of their preseason game. Quarterback Andy Dalton participated in joint practices during his time with the Bengals, and he found them helpful.

“It gets to be a point in camp where you’re tired of going against each other, battling with one another, and you get a chance to take a break and go against somebody new,” Dalton said. “For us, we’ve been going against our defense the whole time. All right, now you get a few days to see a different defense, see how they’re playing certain things.”

The Bears and Dolphins will practice Wednesday and Thursday. They won’t practice Friday ahead of the preseason game on Saturday.