Here is the best info I could find on Bears injuries. Unfortunately no link available since it isn;t in archives any longer. FYI Mike Mulligan is a Bears beat writer for the SunTimes:
Bears looking to gain from '02 pain
July 27, 2003
BY MIKE MULLIGAN STAFF REPORTER
Injuries in the NFL are as inevitable as death and taxes. Expectations for success aren't supposed to change when players go down, and injuries are never to be used as an excuse for failure. But with the Bears looking to shake off the emotional trauma of last season's 4-12 campaign--a nine-game slide from the 13-3 season of 2001--the return of injured players is regarded as tangible evidence that this season will be different.
Defensive coordinator Greg Blache acknowledged as much on Friday in Bourbonnais at the opening of Bears training camp.
"I am totally convinced we will be a better football team because of all our injuries last year,'' Blache said. "The young guys that had to go on the field and play got better. The guys that missed the season will have some hunger coming back. The lack of success we had as a unit is going to create some want and give you an edge. That's the gist of what I'm telling these guys: 'Whatever happens to you, use it as a springboard, as a stepping-stone.'''
The hangover from last year's injuries still clouds the minds of many in the organization, even if no one wants to admit it. Offensive tackle Marc Colombo still isn't cleared to play after undergoing a second offseason surgery, and tight end John Davis is still nursing the sore back that ended his season with five games to play.
All told, the Bears ended the 2002 season with 17 players out because of injuries, including 11 on injured reserve. The defense couldn't stop the run after losing defensive tackle Ted Washington in Week 2. The offense stopped scoring when wide receiver David Terrell went down in Week 5 and stopped running the ball when guard Rex Tucker was lost the same day.
"By the end of the year, we were like an NFL Europe team out there,'' center Olin Kreutz said. "I didn't know half the guys in the huddle. Not a knock on [Henry] Burris, but he was calling some wrong plays at times against Tampa Bay [in the season finale]. It got really ugly.''
Forty-seven players started, and only five players--Jerry Azumah, Brian Urlacher, Mike Green, Mike Brown and Big Cat Williams--started every game. Williams, who was waived in the offseason, played through injuries all season. And he wasn't alone. Defensive end Phillip Daniels and cornerback R.W. McQuarters were injured in the season opener, missed three games and played hurt all year. Defensive tackle Bryan Robinson injured both his wrists in a household fall before the season started and never regained top strength.
The Bears used 15 different starting lineups on offense and 11 on defense. Three quarterbacks started, and four played by the time the season ended. Quarterback Jim Miller finally went on injured reserve for the last two games, but he played most of the year with a bad shoulder--so bad that he couldn't throw in practice or even warm up before games.
"Every Monday when you came in, you'd check the training room first to see who was in there and who wouldn't be available the next week,'' Brown said. "We were losing someone every week. A lot of core guys.''
It was an extraordinary number of injuries. In the entire NFL, just over 150 players ended the season on injured reserve, just over five players per team. The Bears more than doubled that because of many factors, from old-fashioned bad luck to an entire schedule on the road with eight regular-season games in Champaign at Memorial Stadium while Soldier Field was rebuilt.
"I didn't feel like it was a safe surface to play on,'' Brown said. "It was good in the sense that it's not like regular Astroturf, but in Champaign sometimes the field would actually move. The carpet would move under you, then it was like it grabbed you.''
None of the Bears was enthralled with the AstroPlay surface at Memorial Stadium, which Brown said is inferior to Field Turf, the surface used in some NFL cities and one that Brown played on during his days at Nebraska.
The Bears played their first 11 games and 13 total on some form of artificial surface a year ago. With the return to Soldier Field this year--after two preseason "home'' games in Champaign--the Bears will play only four of their 16-game schedule on artificial surfaces--two in domes in Minnesota and New Orleans and two on Field Turf in Detroit and Seattle.
Blache dismisses the turf talk as irrelevant, pointing out that the Green Bay Packers suffered plenty of injuries last year despite playing their home games on grass. But Blache admits that it's a slippery slope when the injury bug bites.
"Continuity goes, confidence goes and it snowballs on you,'' he said.
That's why it's better to have a positive thought in your head. There might be no legitimate evidence to support the feeling, but the general attitude among players seems to be that the team suffered through its share of bad luck a year ago and clear sailing is now ahead. The odds, if not the football gods, are now in their favor.
"It hit us bad last year,'' Terrell said. "It was like we were in the middle of the ocean and tornados hit us and hurricanes got us. ... It was the perfect storm, and we were sinking. But we're floating now. It's behind us.''
Terrell wasn't supposed to be on the board when the Bears picked him with the eighth overall selection in 2001, but teams passed on him early because of concerns about a stress fracture in his foot, the same foot he finally broke last year.
"I just played through it because that's what you do in football, but now it's fixed and it's no longer in the back of my mind,'' Terrell said.
Tight end Dustin Lyman blew out his knee while blocking on the punt team. He had surgery on the knee in college and figures now that he was playing all along on a knee that needed another procedure without even knowing it.
"I was wearing a knee brace, and I figured that was just how your knee was supposed to feel after [the earlier] surgery,'' Lyman said. "But after the second surgery, it helped me so much. For the first time, both my knees felt good. I feel like I am running faster, my routes are better and my blocking is better.''
KNOCKED OUT
The health and good fortune of the 2001 season were nowhere to be found in 2002. The Bears used 47 different starters last season and had only five players start every game. Here's a look at the 11 players who went on injured
reserve in 2002, the six whose season was ended by injury and the other key starters who missed time.
INJURED RESERVE
*With games
missed
T. Washington 14
Bobby Gray 13
W. Holdman 12
David Terrell 11
Rex Tucker 11
Reggie Austin 7
Marc Colombo 6
Todd McMillon 6
Jim Miller 6
Dustin Lyman 4
A. Thomas 4
SEASON ENDED BY INJURY
*With games
missed
Damon Moore 10
Chris Chandler 7
John Davis 6
Christian Peter 4
Bryan Knight 1
Keith Traylor 1
MISSED STARTS
R.W. McQuarters 7
Phillip Daniels 4
Olin Kreutz 1
Chris Villarrial 1
