Apparently, Labor Day is for labor.
While most will be celebrating the unofficial end of summer Monday, work for the Chicago Bears goes into overtime to prepare to play the Carolina Panthers in the regular-season opener Sept. 13.
The Bears practice four times: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
How to get the latest Chicago Bears news all season
Offensive coordinator Press Taylor exemplifies what the week means for coaches on a personal level: It's a test of wits and wills between game planners on both sides of the ball.
Taylor relishes "just learning who the defensive coordinator is, what his DNA is."
"We're trying to build his call sheet, so you're studying the tape and you're trying to dive into where are his yard breaks, what are his third-down sections, what are his red-zone sections, where does he pressure, when does he pressure, what do they like to do, what are their adjustments?" Taylor said. "So just trying to figure out who this guy is, what his DNA is, what his response to certain looks is going to be. …
"The chess match of trying to figure out who you're playing first is probably the most exciting part of Mondays."
NFL teams will scramble to gather as much insight as the can about their Week 1 opponents, but some insights about the Bears can be gleaned from five weeks of training camp and preseason.
Some take for granted that players get injured and then heal.
Fans have become accustomed to athletes making miraculous recoveries in mere months that would take "normal" people a year or more.
But New York Giants running back Cam Skattebo's admission that he considered retirement after suffering a fractured right ankle last season illustrates how injuries can mess with athletes' mind, not just their bodies.
"Like the first month (of rehab), I was like 'Damn, do I really want to do this?'" he said. "And then it was seven games, you know, I got to go back and play."
It didn't get that bad for Edwards, but the Bears linebacker confessed his struggles after suffering a fractured left fibula during the wild-card playoff game against the Green Bay Packers .
"It was really tough, to be honest with you," he said. "It was the first real traumatic injury I've had in that way, so the monotonous things of just moving your ankle and getting that going was frustrating at times."
Edwards said the training staff had a great recovery plan, but he had to endure "brutal" exercises such as blood-flow restriction, or BFR, "where it just squeezes your leg to get blood flow down to your legs."
"The reps are like 30 reps, take a second, squeeze your leg more; 15, do that again; 15, then another 15," he said. "I remember doing that and I was just like, 'Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know if this is for me. But again, really good support staff with the training room and the strength room, they were all huge for me."
Edwards also experienced tough times mentally, but "my wife has a picture like a week out after surgery, and we'd just (taken) the bandages off. Any time I was frustrated with the process or something like that, she would just send me that picture of how blown up my ankle was and how far I've come, and it helped me a ton."
And he had a teammate who had been through it before.
Left tackle Braxton Jones fractured the fibula and ankle in his left leg in December 2024.
"Braxton was honestly a huge help for me, just talking to him about what helped him, what didn't," Edwards said. "I'd be doing an exercise, and he would just come in and look at me like, 'Yeah, yeah.'"
He simulated Jones nodding his head in solidarity: "He remembers that."
Or perhaps "rope a dope" is more apropos.
Coaches and players have been very guarded about giving away specifics about their scheme, but one thing's clear: There's a game within the game when it comes to the playbook. Ben Johnson likes to call different runs or passes off an identical formation, but even those eventually will branch off into new plays.
"When we get really good at our just base, call-it-and-run-it wide-zone schemes, then we're going to have all the complements off of it that," Taylor said. "A defense sees it over and over and over, they play it a certain way. And now we want to hit with this counterpunch, if you will.
"That's something that comes up more in-season, game to game, week to week. … But again, we can't get into that stuff until we feel the guys have really mastered what we're trying to do."
Swift feels as if this has been "one of my better camps as far as stacking days, being consistent and things like that. Yeah, just ready for Week 1."
It's easy to say Swift has had another year in Johnson's offense, so of course he's better. But simply being present isn't enough. Every season, plenty of incumbents lose their starting position or are cut.
For Swift, god is in the details.
"I was having a better sense of the offense second year going into it, knowing what Ben wants to see from me," he said. "So me being very critical of little stuff, landmarks, aiming points … then I can go out there and play fast and do what I need to do."
Added Taylor: "If we're telling you to aim at the outside leg of the play-side tackle, whatever that may be, for the scheme we have, we need you on track to that point, because the way we're going to take on blocks is going to determine where the ball goes after that.
"But if you're too wide, maybe you can't get to the cutback … So every little thing is kind of the science of football that matters more than you would think."
Swift left Thursday's practice early , but it's likely the extent of his injury (if any) won't become apparent until early in the week.
Kyle Monangai has missed nine consecutive practices since hurting his right knee Aug. 16 . He's "week to week," so his status on the Bears' first injury report Wednesday will be critical.
Roschon Johnson had only two carries for 17 yards in seven games last season.
Taylor said coaches are aware of the situation, but "Roschon is a guy that really had a great finish to camp here, somebody that earned a lot of trust through the last couple weeks."
He had the fifth-most rushing attempts of the preseason with 35 for 128 yards.
"As Kyle goes down and Roschon's numbers increase and he got more opportunities, he proved to us that he's trustworthy," Taylor said.
Whatever the team, whatever the sport, certain teammates help bind a locker room, even if they're not a captain or a starter. Even if they're not second string.
Walker appears to be one of those players.
He's fifth out of five receivers on the depth chart, but his name keeps coming up.
"If you love a game, then Jahdae is infectious," Kalif Raymond said. "We had a drill at the end of practice (Thursday), everybody's tired, and Jahdae is making plays. He kept that drill going at the end. … From an energy guy, from playmaking ability, he's a core guy."
This is coming from someone who has marked a decade in the NFL.
Wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El can cosign.
"He's the one I have to tell to slow down in the (meeting) room," Randle El said. "Kalif is, like, controlled energy. Jahdae is just baaaah. Energy all the time."
Walker usually finds himself available when Caleb Williams needs him.
"Jahdae is one of my good friends since he's been here," Williams said. "There has been moments where I may have had a bad practice or a bad game, and I've texted Jahdae — maybe he wasn't playing, or maybe he was — I've texted Jahdae and been like 'Yo, can we get to the indoor or can we do something?' and he shows up and he's always there."
Just like some defensive players are "always around the football," somehow Walker is always around a touchdown celebration.
"You see some cool dances out there, you can definitely thank Jahdae because he set it up," Raymond said.
