NFC Notes: Bears, Lions, Packers

Bears

• The Bears officially ruled out RB David Montgomery (ankle, knee) from Sunday’s game. 
• Bears tried out P James Smith and LS Mitchell Fabroni. (Brad Biggs)

Lions

Lions WRs coach Antwaan Randle El said that first-round WR Jameson Williams is still “coming along” with his recovery from a torn ACL.

“He’s coming along,” Randle El said, via Justin Rogers of the Detroit News. “Wish (he was ready to go) yesterday, but just coming along. We’ll see. Just got to keep working at it. And that’s the thing, he’s working hard, not just in the weight room, but in the training room and all that stuff, trying to get back and get going and get his first taste, so to speak.”

Randle El added that Williams has done well to learn their system during team meetings and is showing a good understanding of offensive concepts. 

“He’s picking it up. We go over it every day,” Randle El said. “It’s like in between sessions we go over the plays with him, he can spit it right back out to me. …You just work every week, you know, what’s in the game plan? Hey, here it is and him go through it and give it to you, so he understands it. He can talk to you about coverages, stuff like that, so he gets it. The physical part, I’m not worried about. It’s always the mental you want to make sure a guy has. He has it. He’s getting it down.”

Randle El said that Williams is a player who can “move around” in their system and compared his skill set to WR Amon-Ra St. Brown. 

“Oh, he can play,” Randle El said. “He’s a guy you can move around. He’s smart and he gets it in terms of being in different spots. That’s what you want to do with a guy like that, use his speed, whether it’s him running past somebody or him getting somebody else open. That speed means a lot. And then obviously he catches the ball well and gets in and out of his cuts, him and Saint (Amon-Ra St. Brown) are kinda alike, they get out of cuts so fast. It’s unbelievable. Some people take four steps. This cat takes like 2 1/2. It’s unbelievable.”

• Lions HC Dan Campbell said RB D’Andre Swift (shoulder) is “probably out” for Week 4. (Dave Birkett)
• Lions OT Penei Sewell said he’s confident in Detroit’s backfield despite being without Swift and praised to work of RBs coach Duce Staley: “Just a great job of Duce Staley of bringing those type of guys into the room. Just great guys we all love to block for.” (Eric Woodyard)

Packers

• Packers OC Adam Stenavich said the team is coming up with a game plan to play OT David Bakhtiari “as much as possible.” Stenavich mentioned that Bakhtiari could possibly work within a rotation to start on gameday. (Tom Silverstein)
• Stenavich said he wants to see OL Royce Newman be more physical at the point of attack: “I would still like him to be more consistent and more physical. I’m really hoping in the next few weeks we see that out of him because he has great ability, but we just need to see him take that next step and really get after some people.” (Matt Schneidman)

• Packers HC Matt LaFleur said that LT David Bakhtiari (knee) may practice in pads some weeks and there may be other times that he doesn’t: “It’s like the wind. It can change week to week.” (Tom Silverstein)