Bears' Kyle Long Has Lots Of Time On His Hands During Rehab, But He's Scaling Back On Social Media

(CBS) Bears guard Kyle Long has quite a bit of free time on his hands as he rehabs from right ankle surgery and awaits surgery on his left shoulder, but he isn't using quite as much of it on social media.

After a discussion with Bears general manager Ryan Pace, Long has decided not to get in so many social media squabbles with those who criticize him.

"I'm just going to kind of take a step back from Twitter and from Instagram," Long said in a recent interview on the Pardon My Take podcast with hosts Big Cat and PFT Commenter. "I'm just going to hang out and enjoy my down time. Yeah, people piss me off. Pace was like, we were talking the other day, I was talking to him and he's a great guy, I was giving him an update on everything with my leg and we were talking about social media and stuff, and he's like, 'Dude, you can't tell people to eat shit. You can't do that.' He was dead serious. And it's wrong for me to do that. It is wrong for me to do that, because if I think about it, with the audience that follows me, probably a large part are Bears fans, there's a ton of kids, there's a ton of parents. I should probably be more careful about that."

Long suffered a serious right ankle injury in a Nov. 13 loss at Tampa Bay when his foot got stepped on by a teammate on a shovel pass play. He had surgery in late November, saying, "I pretty much tore everything I can tear in my right ankle aside from the Achilles. I got my big dog, the Achilles is still standing.

Since the operation, Long has primarily been confined to his house while playing lots of video games, as moving around is difficult. One of the most outgoing and well-liked players on the team, Long admitted being away from his teammates has been difficult.

"As somebody who hasn't missed a lot of football and hasn't spent many a lot of days outside of Halas Hall over the course of the last four years, it's really tough for me," Long told Pardon My Take. "Being a big part of the team and being somebody who has a lot of friends in that locker room, it's tough not to be in there every day and go through the things they go through, through the highs and lows. There's a lot of lows recently. But there's a lot of good young talent in that building, great guys. It's tough being away. It weighs on you, because you get used to seeing the guys, cracking the jokes, being a part of the group chat. Now, I can't even respond to the stuff in the group chat because I don't even know what the hell they're talking about half the time. I'm out on the inside jokes."

Long anticipated having shoulder surgery for his torn labrum in about nine weeks, he told the Pardon My Take crew. He'd been playing through the torn labrum since the preseason.

"I'm going to be without an arm or a leg for a bit," Long said.

You can listen to the whole Pardon My Take interview with Long here. He also discusses the downward spiral that came at the end of former coach Marc Trestman's tenure in 2014.