On Sunday, Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher said he was out of camp on personal business, not to get his sore left knee looked at by other doctors.
In a stunning coincidence of timing, Urlacher had surgery on that very same knee this morning, according to Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune.
Urlacher and the team have maintained he’ll be ready for the Sept. 9 opener against the Colts, but with surgery 26 days from that point, his status is very much in the air.
During an interview Monday with WFLD Fox-32, Urlacher was asked if there was a surgery that he could have and still return quickly.
“I don’t know,” Urlacher said. “I am just going to keep resting right now. I have never had a scope. I don’t know how that stuff works. This is the first time I have ever done anything to my knee so I am kind of new to this. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know how that works.”
Urlacher’s been limited all offseason, after spraining the MCL and PCL in his left knee in the Jan. 1 finale against the Vikings.
He practiced for a week early in camp, but when the knee swelled, the Bears decided to shut him down.
“I just think I did a lot of movements I hadn’t done in a long time and being out there for 2 ½, three hours probably doesn’t help, running around,” Urlacher told Fox-32. “But it’s practice. You gotta do it. I think just the shock of being out there so long and doing so many movements like that was too much for my knee.
“It is hard but there is a fine line between pushing it and easing into it, which is what I need to do. I just gotta get back out there for Sept. 9. Even if I just practice the week before, I’ll be in good enough shape to make it through those games. But I gotta be out there when the games count.”
Urlacher sounds like a guy in a bit of denial. He’s 34 years old, and isn’t going to be able to recover at the rate he did when he was younger.