Chicago Bears long snapper Patrick Scales ‘will be missed,’ but Bears will get Scott Daly up to speed

LAKE FOREST – The Chicago Bears have just over a week to bring a new long snapper up to speed. That might sound like a minor footnote, but it’s the type of adjustment that keeps NFL special teams coordinators up at night.

“It is extremely challenging,” Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said. “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 Bears placed longtime long snapper Patrick Scales on injured reserve Wednesday. Scales is dealing with a back injury that will keep him out for at least a month. Players placed on injured reserve must miss at least four games before they can return to the active roster.

Scales’ streak of consecutive regular-season appearances with the Bears will be cut short at 99. The 36-year-old veteran long snapper hasn’t missed a game since sitting out the entire 2017 season with a torn ACL. Scales is the longest-tenured member of the Bears. He has been on the team since 2015 and has appeared in 122 regular season games, plus two playoff games.

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.”

—  Richard Hightower, Bears special teams coordinator

“He’s the glue in that room, honestly,” Hightower said. “So he will be missed, but this is pro football. And Pat wants us to go forward.”

Now, in steps veteran Scott Daly. The Bears signed Daly to the practice squad ahead of practice Thursday. He’s expected to be called up to the active roster before the season opener Sept. 8.

The Downers Grove native took a roundabout route to the NFL. Once upon a time he had a rookie minicamp tryout with the Bears in 2017, but the Bears didn’t offer him a contract.

Following stints in the XFL and the Alliance of American Football, Daly finally landed an NFL job in 2021 with the Detroit Lions. He spent the past three season with the Lions, appearing in 42 games. However, a knee injury cut his 2023 season short. This month, he lost the Lions long snapper job to undrafted rookie Hogan Hatten.

But Daly isn’t moving far. He comes back to his hometown Bears. Daly played high school ball at Downers Grove South and college ball at Notre Dame.

The long snapper handles snaps on field goal attempts and punts. It can be a thankless job, and one that fans don’t even notice unless something goes wrong.

The Bears have had Scales doing it for the better part of a decade. Daly will have to work hard to build familiarity with Bears kicker Cairo Santos and rookie punter Tory Taylor, who serves as the holder on field goal tries.

“Now, it’s all about Cairo and Tory developing that relationship and that bond together,” Hightower said. “Because that’s a critical piece of our teams, because it deals with points, and points are how you win games.”

Transactions

The Bears officially signed Daly to the practice squad Thursday. Additionally, the Bears signed offensive lineman Chris Glaser, defensive tackle Sam Roberts and receiver Samori Toure to the practice squad.

In corresponding moves, the Bears released safety Quindell Johnson and defensive tackle Dashaun Mallory from the practice squad.

With those moves, the practice squad is full at 16 players.