In their final practice before Week 1 arrives, the Chicago Bears officially pivoted at long snapper.
Veteran Scott Daly, a Downers Grove South alumnus who spent the last three seasons with the Detroit Lions, was signed to the practice squad Thursday and promptly made his way onto the field at Halas Hall in his new No. 46 jersey.
Daly is the emergency replacement for incumbent long snapper Patrick Scales, who had back surgery Thursday and is out indefinitely. That leaves the Bears special teams units to work through some important troubleshooting procedures, particularly with a place-kicking operation in which Daly joins kicker Cairo Santos and holder Tory Taylor.
Taylor, a rookie, also will have a lot on his plate with his punting duties. So there will be a significant challenge, at least in the short term, to accelerate the chemistry and fluidity of the kicking operation.
“It’s something we’re going to have to work on,” special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said Thursday morning. “It is extremely challenging. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.
“A lot of people think that you just snap, hold, kick and the ball goes through the uprights. But there are a lot of different things that play into that. The laces. The lean on the ball. The wind. How you tilt the ball can change the direction and the flight pattern of the ball. How you snap it can change that. How you hold the ball can change that.”
The current plan, according to a league source, is for Daly to remain on the practice squad to start the season, with general manager Ryan Poles temporarily taking advantage of a league rule that allows him to promote Daly to the active roster on game day up to three times.
Beyond that, Daly’s performance and Scales’ recovery likely will guide Poles’ decision-making.
Daly replaced 17-year veteran Don Muhlbach as the Lions long snapper in 2021 and played in 42 games over three seasons. But he suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 8 last season and was beat out by rookie Hogan Hatten during training camp this summer.
Still, Hightower spoke highly of Daly.
“Snaps a really good ball,” Hightower said. “In our personal opinion, he’s one of the best 32 in the league.”
Hightower also acknowledged the difficulty in replacing Scales, who has played 120 games over the last eight seasons for the Bears.
“He’s the glue in that room,” Hightower said. “Honestly. So he will be missed.”
After Scales first went down during the Hall of Fame Game earlier this month, the Bears used Cameron Lyons as their camp fill-in, with Lyons playing in the final three preseason games. But they always were seeking an upgrade in talent and experience.
That left the team to be patient as it waited for roster moves around the league to enhance the market. Daly was cut by the Lions on Tuesday and went unclaimed on waivers but quickly found a soft landing with the Bears.
“I have to have patience,” Hightower said. “But it’s unfair for the team if I sit and worry about it.”
Hightower noted that in 2019, when he was the special teams coordinator for the NFC champion San Francisco 49ers, the team needed four long snappers — Colin Holba, Jon Condo, Garrison Sanborn and Kyle Nelson — to get through the season’s finish line.
“We didn’t skip a beat,” Hightower said. “Because we can’t skip a beat.”
The plan is identical now at Halas Hall, as Daly gets acclimated and up to speed before the Sept. 8 opener against the Tennessee Titans.