LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- The Chicago Bears kept all of their practice squad players home and altered Monday's schedule following practice squad offensive lineman Badara Traore's positive COVID-19 test over the weekend.
"We were scheduled to have [a high-tempo] practice where we're going pretty fast and we have got everyone here, but we kept our practice squad players for preventative measure, we kept them at home, so they're not even in the building today," Bears coach Matt Nagy said on a Zoom call.
"What happens when you don't have your practice squad players is now you don't have guys and numbers to run your [high-tempo] practice."
Nagy added that Traore -- an undrafted rookie out of LSU -- appears to be OK.
"Just from talking to him, he feels bad because he has no idea when it happened or anything like that," Nagy said. "That's the biggest thing is just trying to handle the why part. Why him? But at the same time, we all just need to understand that and support him and know that we have to do our job now and risk mitigate as much as possible. But he seems to be doing well."
The Bears, who had the weekend off after they defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Thursday night, have not had a positive test since Traore went on the reserve/COVID-19 list on Saturday.
As of now, Nagy anticipates practice squad players returning to the building for Wednesday's practice -- the Bears are off on Tuesday -- but acknowledges that everything is subject to change as the club undergoes daily testing.
"The timing of this, what happened with our positive test, you know you never want it to happen but when it did happen you know it happened at a good time for us because it, you know we had guys out of the building, which is good," Nagy said. "I think what you see is you've got to make sure that just because things are going well the last couple of days in regards to results you want to make sure that that continues to go here for the next several days to kind of get through the incubation period."
The Bears held a team Zoom call on Sunday night to discuss the latest COVID-19-related developments and answer any questions.
"It's pretty scary," Bears wide receiver Allen Robinson told reporters via Zoom. "You just kind of think back as far as maybe who that player has been around, things like that because you've seen cases pop up through teams that haven't even been in the facility but kept seeing it pop up and things like that. So it's scary. All you can kind of do is keep your fingers crossed that this is the last and only person.
"You hope every day that you wake up that you don't have that missed call or call on your cell phone that you tested positive. I feel like for us as a team, as players we're taking the proper and necessary precautions to maintain our safety. But at the end of the day this is a very unknown thing when it comes to just how the virus is spreading and things like that. All you can do is hope that nobody else is in the crossfire."