Rookie running back David Montgomery has a lot to accomplish during the Bears’ summer break.
Finding an apartment isn’t on his list.
“I might stay in the [team-issued] hotel all year,” Montgomery said Wednesday.
It’s less stressful, he said, and the room gets cleaned once a day. Growing up in poverty, he didn’t always have a bed to sleep on. And this one is good.
“It’s a comfortable bed,” Montgomery said.
Living a simple life will give him time to study the playbook. Montgomery goes over the Bears’ plays for two or three hours a night before bed. He texts or FaceTimes position coach Charles London with questions.
“It’s good that he’s up,” London said last month. “I’m the one that may not be up.”
Bears rookies will stick around Chicago a week longer than the veterans, who leave after the last mandatory minicamp practice Thursday. Montgomery will spend the time studying.
“Know as much as I can,” he said. “And retain as much as I can.”
His versatility has been impressive in practice. Because the team has yet to put on pads, though, the Iowa State alum hasn’t been able to showcase the slashing running style that earned him a third-round draft selection.
“He’s quiet,” coach Matt Nagy said. “But he’s so driven, and you can just see how competitive he is, and he wants to be perfect on every single play. So he’s gonna practice the way he plays. And he’s making plays.
“We always knew he had great hands. You don’t know how great of a route runner a college back is, but he’s a really good route runner. . . . This kid can’t wait. [Neither can] Mike Davis and these other backs. They want to put the pads on.”
When they do, Montgomery might look familiar.
“Somebody after the [draft] compared him to [Matt] Forte,” offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said. “That’s pretty rare air around here. They gave him the compliment — and hopefully Matt Forte thinks this is a compliment — of maybe not a 10 anywhere, but a lot of 9s.”
He has one final step before camp: Montgomery is one of two Bears rookies yet to sign a contract. Roquan Smith’s 2018 holdout notwithstanding, the delay is not unusual. The Bears waited until July to sign then-rookie Mitch Trubisky.
“I don’t normally worry about that kind of stuff too much,” Nagy said. “Probably a fault of mine. But I’m not. . . . He’ll be OK.”
