NFC North Daily: Hot Breakfast Links for August 6, 2012

Lots of stuff happened in the NFL this weekend, but before I get into the highs and lows for the NFC North, I wanted to express my condolences to the Philadelphia Eagles and Andy Reid's family. In case you didn't know, his son Garrett was found dead on Sunday morning, and I cannot imagine a worse thing for a parent, no matter the child's age.

With that out of the way, let's get to the news from this weekend.

CHICAGO BEARS

Brian Urlacher hasn’t practiced in four days and Bob LeGere of the Daily Herald is sounding alarm bells. I’ll deal more with this later but I don’t think it’s the sign of apocalypse like he does. Might it be a concern? Sure. Might it also be a vet getting rested and up to 100%? Yes. It’s not like he needs camp.

If a player retires from the NFL and they were never very good, does he make a sound? He does on Twitter, which is how Devin Thomas announced his retirement from football, according to Michael Wright of ESPNChicago. I thought this was an odd signing from the jump. He isn’t a great special teams guy, so using him in place of Hester was bizarre. He isn’t a good receiver so, no room for him there. He was never very good. He was overdrafted and was probably tired of the grind of playing a role he never really envisioned would be his role forever. Thomas’ departure makes Dane Sanzenbacher’s position less tenuous as there is more room on the roster. While not a special teams player, Sanzenbacher is a better receiver and will provide nice depth at the position.

DETROIT LIONS

Justin Rogers has a training camp themed chat starting at 11am on MLive.com, if you’ve a mind to go. Should be insightful.

Back from his lengthy holdout, Cliff Avril is hoping the fans don’t give him too hard of a time, Rogers says on MLive. I think the way he has approached this—polite, businesslike and, frankly, classy, should keep the fans off his back. You never know though—after all, $10 million is a lifetime of work to most of us.

Over at the Free Press, Dave Birkett says Nate Burleson put on quite a show for the fans at open practice Sunday, high-fiving fans after a catch and doing a dance with Titus Young after another.

On another note, Burleson continues to show his worth, continuing the nice step forward he took last year in becoming a very reliable option for the Lions.

GREEN BAY PACKERS

Over at CheeseheadTV.com, Zach Kruse has some notes from Packers Family Night where Aaron Rodgers led the whole offense into a Lambeau Leap after a touchdown. These are the things that make the open camps fun. Love hearing about this.

Among his other notes are good things about Nick Perry and Jerel Worthy (who has an extraordinary first step), a shaky Mason Crosby (NOOOO MY FANTASY TEAMMMMM!!!) and an injury to Marshall Newhouse. Brian Carriveau caught me up on the details this morning, and it appears Newhouse had a concussion and will miss a little time, although could play Thursday as well.

Jason Wilde has some practice notes at ESPNMilwaukee, and one of the things which should catch your eye is his notes on receiver Diondre Borel. As Wilde said, there has been some reduction in the discussion of keeping six or seven receivers, but Borel is a guy this team loves. Friday showed why.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS

The Vikes got a disappointing shock Saturday when rookie receiver Greg Childs tore both patellar tendons after landing on the turf after a great catch. It’s the second patellar tendon tear in one knee and the first in another.

Tom Pelissero has more details over at 1500 ESPN, including why it was a totally fine risk to take in the first place and why we shouldn’t count Childs out now.

Mark Craig and Dan Wiederer catch us up on what we’ve learned in camp so far about the defense and special teams.

Like these stories? Follow the linked writers on Twitter!

@zachkruse2 @Justin_Rogers @boblegere @MichaelCWright @freeplions @BrianCarriveau @jasonwilde @tompelissero @markcraignfl @stribdw

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