Bears Blitz

The Chicago Bears’ second week of practice has already produced more than a few surprises with more likely to come Saturday in Buffalo against the Bills in the preseason opener.

For one, rookie safety Al Afalava has received more and more repetitions with the first team ahead of safety Craig Steltz in nickel situations when starting free safety Danieal Manning moves into the nickel back position.

Afalava, playing strong safety when Kevin Payne moved to free safety, broke up a couple passes in Monday’s scrimmage and also made a few mistakes that earned him attention from defensive backs coach Jon Hoke. Usually though, it’s Afalava doing the talking in a brash tone that has even veterans taking note during scrimmage.

“A lot of time when rookies come in, especially in the secondary, they’re quiet,” Bears coach Lovie Smith said. “But he has a little bit of confidence, he talks a lot because he knows what’s going on.

“(He) has good skills, good size, good quickness, a good 40—good, raw speed. And his strong suit is hitting. That’s one part we haven’t gotten a chance to see, but hopefully in the game this week we’ll be able to see some of our DBs tackle.”

Afalava, a 5’11”, 212-pounder, was taken with the 190th pick in this year’s draft after starting 39 games in a four-year career at Oregon State.

In another surprise on defense Monday, Corey Graham moved into the injury-plagued left cornerback spot. Normally that would have surprised no one with starter Charles Tillman (back) and backup Zack Bowman (hamstring) out. However, Graham had played cornerback last year, was moved to safety in the off-season, then to nickel back and now back to cornerback.

On Monday, Trumaine McBride continued playing with starters at left corner until wide receiver Devin Aromashodu beat him on a go route down the sidelines for a touchdown bomb from quarterback Jay Cutler.

When the first team returned to the field for its next set of downs after the backups had performed, McBride had been replaced by Graham on the first team.

Even veteran Nate Vasher hasn’t escaped scrutiny.

“We harp on getting takeaways on the defensive side,” Smith said. “Interceptions are a big part of that.  Nate has done that in the past. We’d like to see (that from) not only Nate but others.

“That’s one part of our training camp practices so far that I would like to see improve, is the amount of takeaways we’ve gotten. But that’s a tribute to what the offense is doing, too. On the other side it’s about ball security and they’ve done a pretty good job with that.”

Because the Bears’ secondary has been so bad and in such a state of flux, it has been difficult to judge how good Bears receivers really are. They have looked excellent — or at least Cutler has looked excellent putting the ball where they need it and most of the time they’ve caught it.

What’s surprising is the number of big plays being made by little known players as opposed to draft picks Johnny Knox, Juaquin Iglesias and Derek Kinder.

Throughout the first week, former practice squad player Brandon Rideau made big catches and earned first-team snaps in Saturday’s workout.

However, on Monday and toward the end of Saturday’s practice it was former Redskins practice squad player Aromashodu who made a handful of catches, including the one to beat McBride with a finger-tip, reaching catch in stride. 

Aromashodu is no mystery to the Bears, who plucked him off the Redskins’ practice squad late last season. Practice squad players are essentially free agents for anyone to sign, provided they are immediately put on the 53-man roster and the Bears liked Aromashodu enough last year to do this. 

Not much has changed in how they feel about the 6’2″, 201-pounder who was also with Miami, and with the Colts’ and Texans’ practice squads.

“He’s a big target, he’s long,” Cutler said about the Bears‘ “other“ Devin. “He’s got some good top-end speed.

“I think D.A.’s coming along really well. He’s making some flashes out there. We’re working him in with the ones a little bit.”

Smith pointed out that Cutler says good things about all the receivers, but lately Aromashodu gets more attention behind Hester and Earl Bennett.

“Both of those guys (Aromashodu, Rideau) have great size, speed and they’re making plays each day,” Smith said. “Going into camp we were going to give some of our younger receivers an opportunity to prove what they can do. Some of the guys like Devin are taking advantage of the situation.”

Teammates are calling Aromashodu “D.A.” to avoid confusion with Hester, but there’s no confusion in Cutler’s mind who Aromashodu is. He noticed this effective target right away and went to offensive coordinator Ron Turner to see if he could get more opportunities with the first team.

“We already knew about him, but to have (Cutler) say that, if you’re a receiver, the best thing you can have is your quarterback asking the coordinator about you,” Turner said. “It doesn’t get any better than that if you’re a receiver, right?”