A disillusioned Curtis Conway was uncharacteristically reticent Thursday regarding his inactive status for Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay, saying he was frustrated at having to follow doctors’ orders.
Conway will miss his third straight game, and his eighth this season, with continuing soreness in his left shoulder and collarbone, which still are not healed from a preseason fracture.
“I’m just really frustrated and doing what they ask me to do,” Conway said.
“I’m a football player and I just want to get out there and play, and it’s hard not to. But I think the doctors are looking out for my best interests.”
Bears coach Dave Wannstedt was just as disenchanted. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just sick about it,” he said.
“We’re all sick about not having Curtis out there. I can’t believe it. Like a lot of things, it’s a bad dream, that he came in in great shape and this thing happens and it’s still lingering and it’s not any better.”
Looking around: Bears personnel chief Mark Hatley is in Seattle this weekend, scouting perhaps the top quarterback prospect expected to be available in the 1998 draft: Washington State’s Ryan Leaf.
Closer to home, Bears officials said there was no chance of troubled running back Lawrence Phillips, cut Thursday by St. Louis, turning up in a Bears uniform.
Multiple kids: Andy and Jennifer Heck had a little more interest than most in the birth of the McCaughey septuplets in Iowa Wednesday. The Hecks’ triplets–Evelyn, Molly and Charlie–celebrated their first birthday Thursday.
“I think I can probably imagine it better than some,” said Heck, who also has an older son, Jonathan, “but still, the only thing that pops in my mind is the exhaustion. I’m quite sure I’d have to have somebody ride to work with me every day so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel.”
