July 28, 2009

It’s my last couple of days here in Chicago before we report on Thursday to Bourbonnais for training camp. I just got into town from New Jersey and I’ve been working out at the facility and just getting everything ready for camp.

One thing I’m not looking forward to is living in a dorm for three weeks. It’s not too bad, we don’t have roommates, but it’s still a dorm room. We’ll eat three meals a day in the cafeteria and the food is actually pretty good, but it’s the same things every day for three weeks.

Your family can visit after practice and you can see them in your free time, but you don’t have much free time. And no one’s allowed in the dorms.

That said, I’m really looking forward to getting going. It’s been a long off-season, lots has happened and there’s been a lot of talk, so it will be nice to finally be able to go out there and work to put it all out on the field and get ready for the start of the season.

We’ll see what changes the coaches have in store for us, though the last two years they’ve been pretty consistent.

We’ll also see if any players show up not in the best shape because it’s easy to tell. But very few guys don’t use the off-season to get in shape, get healthy, work on things and get ready to go. The vast majority show up ready.

It’s not like I haven’t seen the guys in a long time. In previous years the team would break up after the last game and wouldn’t see each other again for months, until training camp. It’s not like that anymore with mini-camps and OTAs starting as early as March. We’ve been working together for months. Camp is really a chance to put the work in on the field and in the classroom and prepare for that first game.

By the way, my football camp in NJ went really well. We had about 170 kids come out and hopefully we’ll have more next year. Brian Cushing, Sinorice Moss and Drew Rosenhaus all came out and we had a great week.

Greg Olsen is a tight end for the Chicago Bears. His blog for www.playerpress.com runs at www.golsen82.com. Follow him on Twitter as gregolsen82.