If 2020 had gone as planned, the Chicago Bears would be two weeks into training camp and preparing to play the Cleveland Browns at Soldier Field Saturday.
Instead, they won't even start padded practices until Monday at Halas Hall.
But that doesn't mean the preseason storylines have changed. The Bears just don't have the games to use as evaluations and will instead have to get creative in practice.
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Had the Bears played the Browns Saturday afternoon as planned, these are the five most important things I would have been watching closely from my press box seat at Soldier Field:
Trubisky vs Foles
Duh. The big one. My guess is both quarterbacks would have seen at least two series in the game, allowing the biggest competition of the summer to play out on television. The Browns wouldn't have done anything too crazy on defense, but we'd still get a better look at how Trubisky is reading and reacting with a live pass rush in front of him. That will be the toughest thing to simulate without preseason games.
RELATED: Nick Foles finally throws to Bears receivers in practice
CB Jaylon Johnson
The second-round pick has the length and cover skills to start immediately, but he'll have to prove himself without the benefit of preseason snaps. Even if Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. saw some reps in this game, Johnson probably wouldn't have matched up against them as a starter, but any reps against a different opponent in a live game situation would have provided a good test for the rookie.
Right guard competition
As far as I'm concerned, the battle at right guard hasn't even started yet. There's no way to truly judge offensive linemen until the pads go one. The game reps would have been very important and it would have been interesting to see if Germain Ifedi of Rashaad Coward would have started against the Browns. They both would have played a lot. The good news for the Bears – but bad news for Ifedi and Coward -- is that they both get to see plenty of Akiem Hicks in practice every day. That should help the evaluation.
Nagy's preseason strategy
Matt Nagy has admitted that it was a mistake to sit his starters for essentially the entire preseason last year. The plan this year was to play them more. But how much more? We'll have to wait until 2021 to get that answer. Perhaps not playing a lot during the 2019 preseason will help those same players get ready for Week 1 this year – especially on offense. The Bears at least can look at last year's mistake and understand why they came out so flat offensively against the Packers in the season opener and make sure it doesn't happen again against the Lions on Sept. 13.
Eddie Goldman's replacement
If we weren't in a pandemic, Goldman wouldn't be sitting out the season. Nonetheless, it would be nice to have a few preseason games to evaluate the replacement situation. It most likely will be "nose tackle by committee" using various players and techniques, but the preseason would have provided us a glimpse at Bilal Nichols' growth and a better look at how much Abdullah Anderson can be relied on to contribute this season.
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5 things Hoge would've been watching in Bears' preseason opener on Saturday originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
