Bears LB Roquan Smith has left hamstring tightness; team preaches caution

Bears rookie linebacker Roquan Smith missed most of practice Tuesday because of tightness in his left hamstring, coach Matt Nagy said.

“It’s more precautionary than anything,” Nagy said. “That’s exactly why we do what we do. You put him in early, and he’s not ready, then something like this happens where it gets worse, so we just want to be really cautionary with it.

Nagy said Smith “most likely” would have practiced if this were a regular-season game.

“I think so. I think the biggest thing right now for us is … when you’re not that far in with him right now we have to be a little bit careful,” he said. “Because we don’t know where he’s at. Any time you end up having something like this, where you just feel even the slightest thing, we want to make sure we’re being smart about it.”

Nagy said he was not sure how this impacts Smith’s chances of making his first preseason appearance Saturday against the Chiefs at Soldier Field.

“I don’t know. It’s probably an hour-by-hour thing right now,” Nagy said. “We just have to see how he responds tomorrow and have a better idea.”

Smith participated in three practices after ending a 29-day contract holdout last week. He had not practiced since Thursday in Denver.

“That’s football,” Nagy said. “There’s a lot of other teams that are going through similar things with good players as well and with rookies. If [your] glass is half-full, you want to make sure that you don’t let that affect you at all. I was just talking to him, I said, ‘Hey man, just get that thing right and we’ll monitor it and see where we’re at and we’ll take care of you.”