The Bears activated cornerback Jaylon Johnson from their non-football injury list and placed him on their initial 53-man roster Tuesday, but it’s not a sure thing that Johnson will be in the lineup against the Vikings to open the season.
Johnson missed all of training camp and the preseason with a soft-tissue injury he suffered while away from the team, so there’s a limited window to get him up to speed before the first Monday night of the season. On Tuesday, General Manager Ryan Poles said the team won’t try to speed up that process.
“We’re taking that [really day-to-day](https://www.chicagobears.com/news/7-things-we-learned-from-bears-gm-ryan-poles-53-man-roster-caleb-williams),” Poles said, via the team’s website. “When I was going out to practice, he was running and doing agility work, so I feel like he’s getting better. When you’re going from not playing and just training to football, there are all kinds of different things that kind of change timelines, so we’re hopeful that he continues to get better. But we also have to be smart to make sure he’s good long-term as well. We’ll just take that day-by-day and really work with our medical staff to make sure we’re doing right by Jaylon.”
Teams will start issuing injury reports for practices next week and those sessions as well as comments from head coach Ben Johnson should provide more of an idea about Johnson’s availability for the opener.