Notable Bears including Jay Cutler, Brian Urlacher, Devin Hester and Alshon Jeffery all suffered injuries this season, but as a whole, the Dallas Morning News found, the Bears were one of the healthiest teams in the league in 2012.
According to the report, the Bears lost 23 starts to various players at various positions, the fourth fewest number in the NFL. Only the 49ers (8), Seahawks (11) and Saints (20) suffered fewer injuries that led to missed games than the Bears.
The Bears placed seven players on Injured Reserve, tied for the fifth fewest number of players to suffer season-ending injuries. Of those lost to injured reserve, however, were starting kicker Robbie Gould and reserve running back Michael Bush, two important cogs in the Bears' offense.
The list, compiled by analyst Rick Gosselin, was shown to prove that even though the Cowboys suffered the third most injuries in the NFL in 2012 (71), it wasn't neccesarily an excuse for why they didn't make the playoffs.
True, six of the 10 teams that suffered the fewest injuries did make the postseason -- San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Minnesota, New England, Atlanta -- but so did the two teams bitten most by the injury bug -- Washington (75) and Green Bay (83).
Cutler's injury hurt the Bears in a road loss to San Francisco, and losing the defensive captain in Urlacher made the defense take a hit, but the Bears can't complain too much about the injury bug...relative to other teams in the league.