The end came quickly and abruptly for Kyle Long with the Bears. Now what?
CHICAGO - Pause long enough and the void becomes obvious, this pocket of the Halas Hall locker room where one of the Bears' most energetic and colorful players usually roamed but will no longer.
The nameplate is still in place above the wooden stall: "75 Long." Several pairs of shoes remain tucked away in the bottom drawer with an array of shirts hung on a metal rod. But make no mistake, Kyle Long's time here is finished, his playing days in Chicago over.
And now the Bears are doing what NFL teams have long been conditioned to do. They're moving on without blinking. Quickly.
"We can't look back," coach Matt Nagy said Monday. "We've got to go."
Next man up. Little time for reflection.
Just wheel the can to the curb and get on to the next chore on the checklist.
Eleven games remain on the Bears schedule, including Sunday's against the Saints. The offensive line needs new life. And Long's recent struggles, the Bears' top decision-makers concluded, were beyond repair.
Thus the end for the veteran lineman came a few days after the team returned from London, a surprise made official and permanent Monday when the organization placed Long on injured reserve. Again.
Formally, the Bears have classified Long's ailment as a hip problem. Per the team, it was never an acute injury tied to one specific moment. Just, in Nagy's words, "wear and tear." Season-ending wear and tear, it turns out.
Pair that with four shaky on-field performances this season, and the IR move became a logical escape hatch, the easiest route for making a change.
"For him," Nagy said, "and for where we were at, it was
