Bears were impressed by Cassius Marsh, even if penalty was a damper

LAKE FOREST – It’s unfortunate, really, that Cassius Marsh will be remembered for his taunting penalty in his Bears debut.

It was a Herculean effort just to be on the field, let alone to record a sack. The Bears signed Marsh to the practice squad Nov. 3 and had only five days to prepare him to face the Pittsburgh Steelers. They pulled him up to the active roster Nov. 8, hours ahead of the Monday night game against Pittsburgh.

Marsh played 22 snaps, recording a sack and five combined tackles.

“In my opinion, he played a good game,” outside linebackers coach Bill Shuey said. “It’s unfortunate that one – he’s going to be remembered for that one play. If you look at the number of snaps he played, especially coming in in a short time, to basically be able to come in and function through the whole call sheet was impressive.”

Marsh was flagged for a taunting penalty after a key third-down sack that should’ve forced the Steelers to punt. Instead, they were awarded an automatic first down and scored a field goal. In a 29-27 Steelers win, it’s reasonable to argue that the call changed the outcome of the game.

The NFL doubled down this week, fining Marsh $5,972 for the penalty, according to NFL.com.

Marsh said after the game that he felt “it’s pretty clear to everybody who saw it that I wasn’t taunting.”

Bears coach Matt Nagy said Monday that he had a discussion with league officials during the bye week about the penalties called in that game.

“The discussions that I have with them, I’m obviously going to keep that between us,” Nagy said. “I think that’s only the right thing to do, but I do appreciate their honesty going through it. And now what I need to do as a coach is I need to make sure that I go through it with our guys and just explain how things went and then also understand the rules.”

The Bears are the eighth team Marsh has played for since he entered the league as a fourth-round draft pick in 2014. The sack against Pittsburgh was his first since 2019, when he played for Arizona. He had 5.5 sacks as recently as 2018 with San Francisco.

He played for three different teams last season alone, including the Steelers. Marsh remained with the Steelers through training camp in 2021, but didn’t make the 53-man roster. He was a free agent until the Bears picked him up this month.

“With the different schemes he’s been in, it was namely he and I working through some translation,” Shuey said. “A lot of things he had experience doing in the past, [it was] a matter of how we call it and how to associate a certain technique with the call. We had an extra meeting and we did an extra walk-through.”

Shuey said the extra walk-through was integral in preparing Marsh on such short notice. Meetings and playbooks are useful, but time on the field is invaluable.

In an ideal world, Marsh will be buried deep down the depth chart this week against Baltimore. But that hinges on outside linebacker Khalil Mack returning from his foot injury.

In electing not to place Mack on injured reserve, the Bears were hopeful the Pro Bowl pass rusher could return as early as this week. That remains to be seen. Mack was not spotted at the team’s first practice back Monday. The Bears aren’t required to release an injury report until Wednesday.

“Khalil is at a point right now where he’s just continuing to push,” Nagy said. “Every day matters to get closer and closer and you know our training staff and our doctors are doing everything we can.”