The Chicago Bears have been dealing with injuries to key players throughout the early portion of training camp, and another starter joined the growing list of players needing treatment from the medical team on Thursday.
In the latter stages of Thursday's practice session at training camp, a key specialist for the Bears went down and needed to be carted off the field to receive medical attention from the team's staff.
It remains to be seen just how serious an injury this is. If the veteran is forced to miss any amount of time, then Chicago's front office will have to make a roster move sooner rather than later. Otherwise, they will be forced to rely upon an undrafted rookie free agent to hold the spot down.
Bears Specialist Scott Daly Carted Off Field on 8th Day of Training Camp
Most teams only carry one long snapper on the 53-man roster during the regular season. Fortunately, the Bears have two on their roster for training camp as five-year veteran Scott Daly was carted off the field and taken to the locker room toward the end of Thursday's practice.
Long snapper Scott Daly was just carted back to the locker room.
— Courtney Cronin (@CourtneyRCronin) July 31, 2025
Should Daly be forced to miss time, the Bears will turn to former Iowa Hawkeyes long snapper Luke Elkin to hold down the fort for now. Even with Elkin in camp and healthy enough to play, it wouldn't be surprising to see Ryan Poles and the front office bring in another long snapper just to prevent Elkin from shouldering the entire load on his own.
Daly joined Chicago during the 2024 season as a member of the practice squad before being elevated to the active roster in September. Daly appeared in 17 games for the Bears last season, seeing the field for 130 total snaps, all of which came on special teams.
The former Notre Dame Fighting Irish specialist cannot afford to miss too much time if he wants to remain on this roster entering the 2025 season. Unfortunately, long snapper is a position where teams won't wait around forever to allow a player to rehab from an injury. This is just an unfortunate aspect of the business that seems to rear its ugly head somewhere within the league every year.
We'll just have to wait and see what Daly's diagnosis is and how long the medical staff believes it will take for him to return to the point where he can be on the field.