Adrian Amos is trying to think of Thursday’s matchup as just another NFL game — his fifth season opener, a task equal in significance to any other game this season, the start of something special with his new team.
Yet for Amos, who spent the first four years of his career with the Bears, that might be hard to do.
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For the first time in his career, Amos will get dressed in the visitor’s locker room at Soldier Field. He’ll jog onto the field he knows so well with a “G” on his helmet instead of a “C.” He’ll stand on the sideline opposite the one he called home, fans who cheered him on since 2015 now rooting against him in the first game of the 2019 season, Amos a starting safety for the Packers trying to stop his former teammates.
Not to mention his (cheaper) replacement: Bears fans will be rooting for former Packers first-round pick Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.
“I expect there to be feelings when I come out,” Amos said. “I know I have to be prepared to take a deep breath and play football.”
Amos and the Packers have a steep challenge Thursday night: stop a young, fast, explosive Bears offense with a revamped, unproven Packers defense. He knows how good quarterback Mitch Trubisky, running back Tarik Cohen and wide receivers Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel can be. He practiced against them every day last season and watched them complement a dominant defense as he and the Bears returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2010.
The Packers know how hostile Soldier Field can be, but no one knows better than Amos. Together, they’ll have to stifle a raucous crowd and a Super Bowl contender as they begin their quest to return to the postseason for the first time in three years.
“They have a lot of weapons on offense, so we have to prepare and get ready to play,” Amos said. “Just taking it like another week, prepare for game week, my first game with a new team.”
Amos had only been in Green Bay for a month when the 2019 NFL schedule came out on April 17. He saw his first opponent but figured the matchup between his new team and the old one was more interesting to others than it was to him. Now it’s time, and Amos admits the excitement he didn’t have five months ago is now there.
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The Bears drafted Amos out of Penn State in the fifth round of the 2015 draft. In his four years with Chicago, he developed into a four-year starter and an example of the ideal Day 3 draft pick. Amos won the starting job as a rookie, and then the Bears upgraded by signing Quintin Demps before the 2017 season, only for Demps to get hurt and Amos to have a breakout year in his place. He was even better in ‘18 behind the league’s best defense, starting all 17 games, logging a career-high nine passes defensed and finishing with a career-high 73 tackles.
Bears GM Ryan Pace and the rest of the personnel staff could use Amos as a source of pride. Any team would love for a fifth-rounder to become as productive as Amos was — he amassed 269 total tackles, 18 passes defensed, three interceptions, a pick-six and three forced fumbles over 60 games (56 starts) — but with Eddie Jackson set to become the league’s highest-paid safety in the near future, the Bears wouldn’t sniff the four-year, $36 million deal the Packers gave Amos.
That doesn’t mean the Bears didn’t value what he accomplished for the team.
“Adrian is somebody that I have a lot of respect for in the fact that he just comes to work every single day, he doesn’t do a lot of talking, he shows up, he does what he’s supposed to do,” Bears coach Matt Nagy said Tuesday. “He fits well with these guys, he had that experience. And then obviously coming from Penn State he came from a good program.
“We just know that he’s a guy that you have to know where he’s at and we respect his physicality within in his game and you know, it’s a mutual respect.”
Gabriel’s locker was near Amos’ in their one year together in Chicago, so he knows all too well what the Packers got.
“Feisty, man. Amos is feisty,” Gabriel said. “He’s smart. He’s a big hitter. He calls himself, ‘Smash.’ It’ll be fun to get out there and play. I’m very happy for him.”
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Robinson and Amos were teammates at Penn State. The last time they faced off as NFL opponents came in 2016, Robinson with the Jaguars at Soldier Field and Amos with the Bears. Amos had three tackles and a pass defensed, but nothing on his fellow Nittany Lion.
In the biggest regular-season spotlight there is, one year removed from the reunion the pair had as teammates in Chicago, there’s more to this matchup. Robinson is No. 1 on Amos’ list of players he is looking forward to tackling.
“Been playing against him and with him for a long time, so if you wanted to say one person I would say him,” Amos said.
Robinson said the two have not talked this week — it isn’t on purpose, he maintained, and they don’t even talk much football when they do connect.
“It’ll be exciting,” Robinson said. “I’ve played against him before in the NFL so it’ll be exciting.”
There’s no tackling in practice, but Robinson didn’t recall ever receiving a “thud” from Amos in their times “against” each other in training camp. That may change Thursday night. While Robinson only got one year together with his college teammate, he was thrilled to see Amos cash in.
“I was extremely happy,” he said. “With him being a close friend, it’s exciting to see your close buddies get that financial stability that they’ve worked so hard for.”
Thanks to all the turnover in Chicago, there aren’t many Bears who knew Amos well. The fact that Adam Shaheen got two seasons with Amos is a lot. Zero skill players are remaining from Amos’ rookie year of 2015.
“He’s a good player,” Shaheen said. “Now we get to see him twice a year. Saw him every day, so looking forward to it.”
Cohen claimed that he hasn’t even thought of the prospect of getting a chance to juke Amos in the open field. Gabriel had a little more fun with the hypothetical.
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“It’ll be good to see him,” Gabriel said. “Hopefully I can take him deep Thursday.”
Though Amos knows some of Chicago’s receivers well, he doesn’t feel a significant advantage facing an offense and head coach he’s familiar with.
The Bears showed nothing this preseason on offense — Trubisky played only three snaps, all handoffs — and Nagy had another offseason to innovate.
“It’s gonna be a lot of unscouted looks,” Amos said. “They had a whole year to prepare … when I’m watching film I see players, I know players and I know their tendencies but within the offense, they can change certain things. They watched their tendencies over the offseason and things like that. It’s not a for-sure thing but I know a couple of them.”
For all the unknown — how Amos will feel running out of the tunnel, how Bears fan will greet him, what the Bears will throw at him — one thing is crystal clear.
These are his friends he’s facing, but this week is all business.
“No text messages. I’m not your friend this week,” Gabriel said. “I’ll be your friend next week.”
Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic Chicago contributed to this story.
(Top photo of Amos: John Jones / Getty Images)