Bears waive Sanzenbacher: A bad sign for Conte, Forte?

The best indication of how severe a particular injury might be is usually in the steps the team takes in the hours after it occurs. So when the Bears released wide receiver Dane Sanzenbacher on Monday after injuries to running back Matt Forte and safety Chris Conte, the focus went right to concern over whether one or both of those starters would be lost for the Detroit Lions game next Sunday.

“We’re evaluating still all of the players,” coach Lovie Smith said. “So we don’t have any more information from yesterday.”

Conte pulled a hamstring in the Bears’ 28-13 win over the Arizona Cardinals and was replaced by Anthony Walters. Conte went on injured reserve for the final two games last season with an ankle injury and could finish there again depending upon the true extent of injury.

Hamstrings typically do not heal in a week, as tackle Jonathan Scott and linebacker Brian Urlacher have shown in recent weeks.

The fact that Sanzenbacher was waived mildly suggests that the Bears may be leaning toward adding a player on offense to shore up running back. Harvey Unga is on the practice squad if Forte’s injured right ankle does not respond quickly to treatment.

“Whenever you have a limited amount of guys time this time of year anyways, and when you have a player that goes down, it makes you shuffle things,” coach Lovie Smith said. “Hopefully, Matt will be OK. And a lot of these we’re talking about, hopefully their injuries aren’t as bad as maybe as most of us think.”

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Long-snapper Patrick Mannelly already is “long-tenured” Patrick Mannelly. He is in his 15th season with the Bears and already has played in more career games (230) than any player in franchise history.

Now he can plan on adding to his record after the Bears agreed with him on a one-year extension through the 2013 season. It is the fourth extension the Bears have done with Mannelly, who was the Bears’ sixth-round pick in the 1998 draft, the last under Dave Wannstedt.

Mannelly most recently signed a six-year extension in 2005 and a two-year add-on on Dec. 27, 2010.