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BOURBONNIS, Ill. -- Quarterback Jay Cutler's return to football Monday, with the Miami Dolphins, took by surprise the Chicago Bears team he played for last year. Cutler is rejoining his former Bears offensive coordinator, Adam Gase, who is now head coach with the Dolphins. Miami lost starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill to a knee injury.
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Cutler's comeback raised the eyebrows of one of the quarterback's better friends on the Bears team, guard Kyle Long.
"Obviously, knowing Jay for a while I completely thought he was on full Montana mode, just chilling with his wife and kids," Long said.
Long thinks the Gase-Cutler relationship can make it work.
"I just think Goose (Gase) does a great job of talking to the guys on his team," Long said. "Having that open-door policy, you can walk in his office and talk about anything," Long said. "You don't feel like there's any barrier up with him, which we do a great job with here. We have a lot of coaches like that. But especially as it pertains to Jay, I'd say that he and Goose get along really well."
Bears head coach John Fox wasn't surprised, while offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains first didn't want to comment, then added, "Jay Cutler is extremely talented. He could do whatever he wanted to do."
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The Bears break training camp after practice on Monday, Aug. 14. The final practice in Bourbonnais open to the public is Sunday. Following a day off, they'll resume practices at Halas Hall on Aug. 16. All Halas Hall practices are closed to the public.
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Josh Sitton joined practices following almost the first full week away after the birth of his daughter. He worked exclusively at his new right guard position. Coach John Fox characterized the move initially at camp as an attempt to improve depth, but there was no sign Sitton could return to left guard and Kyle Long could go back to right guard from left guard.
Sitton is experienced on both sides.
"I made the switch from right to left, like, five years ago and that was a bigger transition," Sitton said. "Seeing the defense from the other side of the ball and getting used to that, you get used to hearing a call and that means a certain thing to you and then you've got to flip that in your head. It's not a big deal."
Still, Sitton wouldn't call it like flipping a switch.
"Football, and I can only really speak for offensive linemen, is a muscle memory thing," Sitton said. "When you do something on one side of the ball for so long, your body just gets used to it. It takes a while to train it -- little things, hand placement missing by an inch or two, your footwork missing by an inch or two. It takes time to build that muscle memory back."
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Guard Eric Kush (hamstring) is lost for the season with a torn hamstring. Kush played in eight games with four starts last year due to injuries to Kyle Long and Josh Sitton. The Bears' depth at guard is greater this year.
William Poehls and Tom Compton took almost all the snaps with the first team at guard from the start of OTAs until near the end of the first week of training camp.
In addition to those two, Cody Whitehair on Monday took some snaps as a guard rather than a center. Whitehair became starting center when Hroniss Grasu suffered a season-ending knee injury in training camp last year, but the line could switch to Grasu at center and Whitehair at guard if there is an injury to either starting guard Kyle Long or Josh Sitton.
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Wide receiver Kyle Fuller (calf) was on the field on a limited basis during the second week of practices following a strain suffered last Wednesday. Fuller missed all of last season following a knee injury suffered in preseason that didn't properly healed following arthroscopic surgery.
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Quarterback Connor Shaw (leg) is unavailable and healing from a minor procedure to remove screws in his leg. Shaw last preseason suffered a season-ending broken leg and had screws put into it.
"Had one removed -- it was irritating him -- the other started to kind of pop and irritate him a bit," coach John Fox said. "So we wanted to have that (screw) removed. It went well."
