Chicago Bears: 3 takeaways from Roquan Smith’s first interview

Smith was staying in shape in Athens, GA

While Smith couldn’t work out with his new Bears teammates during his holdout, it was very important to stay in the best shape he could while his agents and “Mr. Pace” worked out his deal. Smith revealed on Tuesday that he was doing his workouts and training at The University of Georgia, where he played college football:

"I was back in Georgia…I would like to say I am [in football shape], I was training pretty hard down in Athens back at school."

When asked specifically about how long he thinks it will take for him to get back into football shape, Smith was a bit unclear. He wasn’t going to get too specific about what type of condition he was in:

"Well, you never really know, all I can do is come up and give my best everyday and uh, just prepare myself the best way I know how."

Smith didn’t really describe what type of training he was doing in Georgia, but it’s safe to assume he was taking his physical shape and progress seriously. The Bears have a huge week one game against their archrival the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football. Smith would like to be ready for that game, although it isn’t exactly clear if he’ll play. Here’s what Smith had to say about playing week one:

"Well, you know, that’s up to the coaches to decide on, you know, when they feel like I’m ready, but I’m just gonna do what I can do to prepare myself the best way. I’ve got confidence in the coaches that they’ll catch me back up to speed…I never really worried about [missing week one] I just kept confidence that they’ll work something out."

It would be a huge boost to the defense if Smith was ready to start on the week against a very tough Packers offense. Coach Matt Nagy said he will work with the other coaches to see how Smith does in the next week or so in camp and go from there on determining his future.