McBride picks Cutler in final OTA

The defensive star of Wednesday’s 13th and final OTA practice was backup corner Trumaine McBride.

In one three-play sequence during the 11-on-11 period, McBride, a seventh-round pick out of Mississippi in 2007, had an interception followed by back-to-back pass break-ups. The pick came after a Jay Cutler high fastball glanced off Devin Hester’s hands and into McBride’s grasp a few yards downfield.

Cutler wasn’t pleased with the outcome of the play, even though the regular season is almost three months away.

“This is the time when we have to have everything going right,” Cutler said, “and if it's not, we have to get it corrected. That's the first time I think it's happened to Devin like that, so he's going to be fine. It's going to happen. It's going to happen in games, but we just have to try to limit it as much as possible.”

Seven players did not practice, including linebackers Brian Urlacher (groin), Hunter Hillenmeyer (hernia surgery), Nick Roach and Joey LaRocque, running backs Matt Forte (hamstring) and Kevin Jones (knee) and cornerback Charles Tillman (shoulder).

Urlacher did some running on the side, as did Hillenmeyer, who appeared close to full speed. Lovie Smith calmed any fears about Urlacher’s health, saying he was back to the “old Brian.”

“Once you've gone through an entire off-season,” Smith said, “a lot of players have sore muscles. No more than that. I'm putting Brian along with quite a few other players that we have right now. And we try to take precautions with the guys at this point of the season. When I say (Urlacher) is back to old form, we haven't performed the way we need to, period. Brian has been a part of that. But all you can do in the off-season is get your body ready to go. There's no issues with his neck, back or anything like that. He is excited about where our football team is. We feel like we're going to be pretty good, and he's one of our leaders.”