There's an old adage that football is not a contact sport, it's a collision sport.
With that in mind, first-year Bears coach Matt Nagy intends to run a physical training camp to best prepare his players for the brutal grind of a long NFL season.
"The biggest thing going into this is just keeping a pulse of the players with regards to their health, their legs, their bodies," Nagy said. "We're going to have a physical camp. There's going to be some live action that goes on. The guys know that. We told them that going into the offseason and going into the summertime that it's going to be physical. We need to callous our team a little bit."
Before being hired by the Bears in January, Nagy spent the previous 10 seasons as an assistant under coach Andy Reid with the Eagles (2008-12) and Chiefs (2013-17). Reid is known for running some of the most grueling training camps in the NFL.
Nagy figures to follow suit, but the Bears coach will be smart about it.
"In the periods where you go ahead and have the live periods, you've got to know it situationally; have a plan for when you're going to do that," Nagy said. "We'll get together as a staff and we'll have an idea when that's going to be.
"The rest of that, every team out there is going to bang and have live periods. You just go with it. The guys understand that. There's some bumps and bruises and we have a great training staff that gets the guys back on track and rolling. And if there's certain guys you want to be calculated with and understand how you're going to do it.
"There's a method to the madness. I know it's my first year going through it and I'll learn from things, but I feel like we have a solid plan."
Bears general manager Ryan Pace endorses Nagy's physical approach.
"We're a young team with a new offensive system going in," Pace said. "And I do agree with the philosophy that sometimes you have to build callous, you have to build that up. So it will be a physical camp and we welcome that. We'll look forward to seeing that out there."
While Nagy understands the importance of conducting a physical camp, he also knows that it's just as critical to keep his players out of the training room.
"The biggest thing that any coach in the NFL will tell you is that you want to come out healthy," Nagy said. "That's a big one. You have to know where you're at on that one. You have to have some luck involved in that. There's some unfortunate injuries and there's some that happen for certain reasons. Health is the biggest concern for us."
