The Chicago Bears had a surprising addition to the inactives list for Thursday Night Football against the Seattle Seahawks.
Six players will be out for Thursday's game, four of which are due to injury. One of the two healthy inactives is linebacker Noah Sewell, the team's fifth-round pick from the 2023 NFL Draft. Week 17 marks the seventh game Sewell has been inactive for, so this doesn't come as a surprise anymore.
The real surprise is that 2023 third-round defensive tackle Zacch Pickens was the other healthy inactive for Thursday's game.
Pickens has played nine games for the Bears this season and started each of the last two games with fellow second-year Gervon Dexter out due to a knee injury. Dexter will be back on Thursday, but it's still surprising to see the team come to this decision with Pickens at this point in the season.
Pickens has played 35+ percent of the team's defensive snaps in each of the last eight games going into Week 17. For a recent draft pick in a lost season, you'd think the Bears would want this kind of guy on the field to continue getting valuable reps.
This season, Pickens has totaled 1.0 sack and 19 total tackles rotating in the interior of the team's defensive line. Pickens did suffer an early season injury that forced him to miss Weeks 3-8 but once returning, Pickens was in line for a larger role after the loss of veteran Andrew Billings.
Bears' defensive coordinator Eric Washington noted back in November that he wanted to see the second-year defensive lineman get back into a rhythm and step up.
"I just want to see just that energy, decisiveness, the physicality from Zacch," Washington said. "Not getting in his own way. Not overthinking things, overanalyzing things — just attacking. He's prepared himself to do that and when we've seen that, it's made a huge difference in our bottom line..."
"Coming off an extended absence the way that he did – I'm not making any excuses for him – but just trying to find that rhythm. NFL football on Sunday is different than practicing it. It's different than walk-throughs. We'll be a lot better this week. I am looking forward to that and he'll help us win."
Almost seven weeks after talking highly of the young defensive lineman, the Bears will be leaving him off the field entirely with two games left in the season.
Earlier this week, interim head coach Thomas Brown noted he plans on playing the best players that gives the team the best opportunity to win. It should be a major red flag for general manager Ryan Poles that the coaches no longer view Pickens as one of those guys.
With Pickens inactive, the Bears will instead rely on Dexter, Chris Williams, Jonathan Ford, and Byron Cowart in the interior of the front against the Seahawks.
