Giving his starters only token snaps in the 2019 preseason was one of the few decisions Matt Nagy acknowledged regretting in his four seasons as the Bears’ head coach.

Quarterback Mitch Trubisky and the starting offensive line played three snaps in the preseason opener against the Panthers and were declared ready for the regular season.

They were not. The Bears finished 29th in points, 29th in total yards, 25th in passing yards and 27th in rushing yards. Trubisky’s passer rating plummeted from 95.4 in 2018 to 83.0 in 2019 –28th in the NFL.

The lesson was clear — more work in game situations for a developing team is better than less. Nagy pledged to rectify that error in judgment, but never really got the chance. There was no NFL preseason in 2020 due to COVID-19. And in 2021, the reduction of the preseason from four games to three altered the preparation dynamic.

The third preseason game that used to be the “dress rehearsal” for Week 1 starters now was also the final preseason game, typically a showcase for backups and players on the fringe of the roster. Nagy seemed caught in between. He sat starting quarterback Andy Dalton, but the starting offensive line played the first half against the Titans.

NFL coaches still are trying to sort out the new three-game preseason. Most teams are trending toward playing their starters less in the preseason, apparently because of injury concerns.

But nothing beats game experience. And for developing teams like the Bears — with an offense in a formative stage with a second-year quarterback in Justin Fields, and a defense getting acclimated to a 4-3 under head coach Matt Eberflus and defensive coordinator Alan Williams –the final preseason game provides an opportunity for much-needed growth on both sides of the ball.

Eberflus would not commit to playing his starters — or resting them — when the Bears play the Browns in their preseason finale on Saturday at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.

“We’re still working through that,” Eberflus said Saturday after practice. “We had one conversation so far about that and … we’re not ready to make the proclamation of what’s going to happen in that game yet.”

Asked which way he was leaning, Eberflus deflected the question with humor — literally leaning to one side than the other. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe this way. Maybe that way. We’ll see.”

The Bears have been described as a “work-in-progress” on both sides of the ball — by Eberflus with the defense and by coordinator Luke Getsy with the offense. The defense, which gets a lot of mileage out of hustle and intensity, appears much closer to Week 1 preparedness. The offense, which depends more on repetition, timing and precision, needs a lot of work.

“I feel like a lot o guys on the defense are ready for Week 1,” defensive tackle Justin Jones said Sunday. “We’ve been going against each other for [awhile]. Preseason is cook, but there’s nothing like really game-planning — figuring out how to attack a team and their star players. How are you going to keep their quarterback in the pocket so we can get all these sacks. That’s the real fun.”

So even what might seem like a meaningless preseason game is an opportunity for the Bears’ offense. If Fields and the starters sit against the Browns, they will enter the regular-season opener against the 49ers on Sept. 11 at Soldier Field without having played in a game for 24 days — and for just nine snaps at that, 27 for the entire preseason.

Any football game comes with the rim of injury, but also provides benefits that practice cannot.

“Just getting hit and actually getting tackled,” running back David Montgomery said. “Seeing different looks. Getting the pace of the game –it’s completely different from practice.”

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CLEVELAND – The White Sox were built to slug and score runs, but for mysterious reasons, they turned into a singles-hitting team in 2022.

So the little things mean a lot to a team ranked 26th in homers and 19th in slugging percentage. And other big things, such as defense and baserunning.

And cutting down on mistakes. It’s the only way they’ll overtake the Guardians and Twins, whom they are, to everyone’s surprise in late August, chasing in the American League Central with 41 games to go following Sunday’s postponement against the Guardians due to wet, unplayable conditions.

“As long as we play good, clean baseball, everyone in here is happy,” said reliever Kendall Graveman, who pitched for the Astros’ AL championship team last season. “The days we don’t play clean baseball are the days it’s difficult for us to look in the mirror. We have to learn from them.”

The Sox are 16-11 in their last 27 games.

“Overall, since the All-Star break we’ve done a much better job playing the game of baseball the way it’s supposed to be played,” Graveman said.

Much better might be a stretch, but if it’s better, it has to be taken up another notch.

For pitchers, it’s about not walking hitters you don’t want to walk and walking hitters who should be walked or pitched around to, Graveman said.

It’s about watching Johnny Cueto and taking notice.

“Baseball is an intricate, detailed game of when do we pitch around a guy with a base open, when are we attacking guys, trying to get a double play ball,” Graveman said. “You watch Cueto’s outings, that’s what we look for. He knows when to go for a strikeout, when to be careful, when to try to get a ground ball. And all of us collectively as a group, if we do that in our own individual area we’ll be much better.”

The Sox’ situational hitting struggles, particularly with runners on third base and no outs when they are an atrocious 1-for-9, reached a point where third base coach Joe McEwing sent Yasmani Grandal home on a single with no outs in Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Guardians. Grandal was out by plenty and injured trying to avoid the tag.

Manager Tony La Russa said the Sox problems of getting runners in from third has been internally discussed and “we know exactly what we are doing wrong.”

“What we could do better,” he said. “That’s something that we have not got significantly better at.

“We know exactly how we can fix it better and they work on it.”

Graveman was among the core group of players who met with La Russa last Monday to discuss how to make things better for this team that was a heavy favorite in the division but faces the possibility of no postseason at all.

“Any time you communicate it’s beneficial,” Graveman said. “We’re spending a lot of time together and we need to have honest conversations, how can we step forward. That’s all it was. For me it was an honor to be in that group and speak. This is our team, these are our guys that need to lead, that’s a good conversation.”

Graveman said conversations in the clubhouse, one with 10-year service time veterans AJ Pollock, Josh Harrison, Jake Diekman, Lance Lynn, Cueto, Grandal, Joe Kelly (this month) and now Elvis Andrus, as well as nine-year veteran Jose Abreuhave become more prevalent.

“In order to win that’s what we need to be,” Gravema said. “This team has so many veterans, so the experience in this locker room is pretty impressive, one of most experienced clubhouses in the league. So from that aspect it helps to have those individual conversations about how can we be better.”

Now it’s about doing it.

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CLEVELAND — The White Sox’ scheduled game against the Cleveland Guardians Saturday at Progressive will start in a rain delay.

The game was slated to begin at 11:05 a.m. (CT).

Right-handers Dylan Cease (12-5, 2.09) and Aaron Civale (2-5, 5.63) are the scheduled starters.

The Sox (62-59) will try to for their second straight win and cut their 2 1/2 game gap behind the first-place Guardians in the AL Central. The Sox trail the second-place Twins by 1 1/2 games.

Before the game, catcher Yasmani Grandal landed on the 10-day injured list with a left knee strain and the contract of catcher Carlos Perez was selected from Triple-ACharlotte. The Sox also transferred reliever Kyle Crick to the 60-day injured list.

Grandal suffered the injury Saturday night attempting to score on Elvis Andrus’ single in the seventh inning. He is hitting .203 with three home runs in 74 games.

P?rez, 26, is hitting .257/.319/.446 with 17 home runs in 91 games with Charlotte this season.

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CLEVELAND — The White Sox’ scheduled game against the Cleveland Guardians Saturday at Progressive will start in a rain delay.

The game was slated to begin at 11:05 a.m. (CT).

Right-handers Dylan Cease (12-5, 2.09) and Aaron Civale (2-5, 5.63) are the scheduled starters.

The Sox (62-59) will try to for their second straight win and cut their 2 1/2 game gap behind the first-place Guardians in the AL Central. The Sox trail the second-place Twins by 1 1/2 games.

Before the game, catcher Yasmani Grandal landed on the 10-day injured list with a left knee strain and the contract of catcher Carlos Perez was selected from Triple-ACharlotte. The Sox also transferred reliever Kyle Crick to the 60-day injured list.

Grandal suffered the injury Saturday night attempting to score on Elvis Andrus’ single in the seventh inning. He is hitting .203 with three home runs in 74 games.

P?rez, 26, is hitting .257/.319/.446 with 17 home runs in 91 games with Charlotte this season.

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CLEVELAND — White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal landed on the 10-day injured list with a left knee strain Sunday, and Triple-A catcher Carlos Perez was selected fromCharlotte to take his place on the active roster.

Perez arrived at Progressive Field Sunday morning before the Sox’ scheduled game against the Guardians.

Grandal, who suffered the injury Saturday night attempting to score on Elvis Andrus’ single in the seventh inning, was getting an MRI Sunday morning. He is hitting .203 with three home runs in 74 games.

“They’re waiting to see,” manager Tony La Russa said. “He left on crutches [Saturday night] and he kind of limped in without the crutches so, we’ll see.”

P?rez, 26, is hitting .257/.319/.446 with 17 home runs in 91 games with Charlotte this season.

Seby Zavala assumes the role of No. 1 catcher in Grandal’s absence. A native of Valencia, Venezuela, P?rez has no major-league experience and will wear uniform No. 21.

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White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal was helped off the field after a knee injury.

According to ESPN, Yasmani Grandal injured his left knee in the seventh inning while attempting to score from second base during Saturday night’s game against the Cleveland Guardians.

Grandal was helped off the field, unable to put any pressure on his knee, and was on crutches in the clubhouse. Manager Tony La Russa spoke on Grandal’s injury saying he will be put on the injury list on Sunday.

“It’s hard [to assess the injury] because he had it twisted, but the way [trainer] James [Kruk] described it, to be determined. Just wait and see.”

With Grandal being on the IL the Sox will be bringing up catcher Carlos Perez from Triple-A Charlotte to Cleveland for Sunday’s series finale to back up Seby Zavala as reported by Chicago Suntimes. Zavala, being one of two catchers on the Sox’s 40-men roster, took over behind the plate for the rest of Saturday’s game.

Grandal, 33, is having one of his worse seasons, after missing five weeks earlier in the season due to spasms, another significant injury adds to his line of bad luck.

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There are only a handful of public schools that start every season realistically expecting to win a state title.

It takes a special coaching staff, an engaged community, a quality youth football setup and a supportive school administration. Batavia is one of those rare places where it has all come together.

“We’re awfully proud as coaches that we are in the conversation every year,” Bulldogs coach Dennis Piron said. “That’s pretty good for a public school. Kids in the community grow up dreaming of being Bulldogs. We are continually amazed by the quality and the sacrifice and the work ethic.”

The town’s deep commitment to high school football made it more difficult to swallow the way last season ended. Batavia lost at Mount Carmel in the second round of the Class 7A state playoffs on a controversial, untimed down after time expired.

“That’s stuck in our craw,” Piron said. “It was such a strange game and we don’t like to talk about it much because we don’t want to have sour grapes. But yeah.”

The No. 4 Bulldogs might not talk much about the game publicly, but they aren’t shy about how much that bitter ending has motivated them for the upcoming season.

“We were the best team last year and we should have won the state title,” linebacker Jack Sadowsky said. “But we’ve put that behind us and we are going to come back and play damn good football. It comes down to the small things. The best team will be able to win on their worst day.”

Sadowsky, an Iowa State recruit, is joined at linebacker by Wisconsin recruit Tyler Jansey. It’s rare to see a high school football team with two Power Five-bound linebackers.

“We have this trust that we’ve built up playing with each other forever,” Jansey said. “It’s just awesome playing with another linebacker of that caliber. We make each other better and no one has to be the star player that has to make all the plays.”

Jansey and Sadowsky will be the foundation of a solid defense.

Batavia’s offense will have new faces at running back and receiver, but junior Ryan Boe returns at quarterback.

“He’s gained so much confidence and he’s going to be so much better than he was last year,” Jansey said. “He’ll have a breakout year.”

Boe (6-1, 195) is relishing the spotlight that comes with the starting quarterback job in a football crazy town.

“Obviously there’s a little bit of pressure but that’s a good feeling,” Boe said. “Being able to come out and see everybody in the stands that supports me and the team and knowing how much they want us to succeed is a special thing.”

Piron raved about Drew Gerke’s improvement at receiver. As usual the Bulldogs have several large pass catchers. Ryan Whitwell and Charlie Whelpy will handle running back duties.

“These are probably the two biggest backs we’ve had together,” Piron said. “Both can run and block so we are pretty excited about that. We like power football.”

Batavia has a rugged schedule that opens with a three-game road trip due to some construction on the football stadium. The home and visiting stands are being enlarged-so even more of the town can fit inside on Friday nights.

“I love road games so I’m not worried about it,” Jansey said. “There’s just nothing better than hearing the crowd growing crazy and then you make a huge play and it is just dead silence. I love that and just the whole routine of going on the bus. It’s like you are a warrior going into battle.”

Batavia schedule

Aug. 27 vs. Phillips at GatelySept. 2 at Lincoln-Way EastSept. 9 at Wheaton NorthSept. 16 vs. Lake ParkSept. 23 at Glenbard NorthSept. 30 vs. Wheaton-Warrenville SouthOct. 7 vs. GenevaOct. 14 at St. Charles EastOct. 21 vs. St. Charles North

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