Chicago Bears' Nagy talks depth chart

I'll say this for Matt Nagy: It's a real pleasure to work with an NFL head coach who isn't trying to run a covert operation and will actually give a straight answer to a simple question.

On Monday, Nagy spoke openly about the ongoing competition at left guard, primarily between Eric Kush and James Daniels, and when I asked him Tuesday for all of the starting lineup questions still remaining for the Green Bay Packers game a week from Sunday, he actually went into detail about exactly where his depth chart is at.

"So for wherever we're at right now with some of the decisions, there's a couple places we talked about yesterday," he said. "One would be in the offensive line at left guard, we have to decide which way we want to go with that.

"The other part for us right now would be just where we're at health-wise at outside linebacker and obviously inside linebacker. So, other than that, we feel pretty good."

Well that was certainly easy enough, not that there are any surprises there.

The Bears' rookie head coach was clear that there still are a number of final roster decisions to be made coming out of Thursday's final exhibition game against the Buffalo Bills, but the rest of the heavy lifting apparently is done.

And let's not be confused by all the walking wounded at linebacker.

Nagy said Tuesday that Roquan Smith almost certainly won't play against the Bills, but in Nagy's mind that doesn't rule him out for the opener at Green Bay.

It does seem pretty clear, though, that at least in Week 1, Danny Trevathan and Nick Kwiatkoski will start.

Outside, Sam Acho will be on one end, and Nagy has said several times the plan is to club up Leonard Floyd and see what he can do, but today's answer tells me that's where the starting intrigue most likely still lies on defense.

Nagy said it will be at least a few more days before Floyd even starts to practice again. If he can't go at Lambeau, we would expect Aaron Lynch to step in, but he has just begun doing some extremely light work after missing all of training camp with a hamstring injury.

Our best guess probably should be that Isaiah Irving would be the next man up if Floyd can't go, but it will be temporary.

The more interesting competition is clearly at left guard.

The Bears have been adamant that Cody Whitehair is the starting center, which we assume is why James Daniels began training camp working at guard.

Then after Daniels struggled a bit and Whitehair was having trouble with his shotgun snaps, Daniels worked exclusively at center for a few weeks before splitting time at center and guard more recently.

Daniels got the start at center Saturday against the Kansas City Chiefs, and Nagy said of his performance, "I thought he played for the most part pretty well. There was one or two plays where he lost his balance a little bit, but for the most part, I was happy with where he was at, and I think, again, for him just being able to get that experience, it was a positive for him."

The obvious question is, how does that translate to Daniels moving back to left guard to compete with Eric Kush, who apparently has been unable to lock down the position?

"Yeah, it's a good battle between those two guys, and I have a lot of trust in (offensive line coach) Harry (Hiestand) and what he believes and where he's at.

"We'll talk together on it as a staff. Harry and I will talk about it and try to make the best decision."

Could Daniels still end up at center, with Whitehair moving back to guard?

Nagy says, "Yeah, just to keep (Daniels) improving with his adjustments at the line of scrimmage, of being able to try and get some reps here to help him slow this game down, whether it's at guard or center."

It seems a safe guess that at least for the opener it'll be Kush at left guard, but, as Nagy tells us, it's the one spot that is still really up in the air.

• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.