There are very few positions on the Bears 2020 roster where there is not, today, a surefire starter. Might there be a battle at quarterback? I doubt it. Will there be a lot of jostling at tight end? Sure, but the Bears are still internally holding out hope for Trey Burton. The one position where there isn’t a starter on the roster? Right guard.

Cody Whitehair, James Daniels, Charles Leno and Bobby Massie are starting in four of the five spots.

The remaining offensive linemen on the current call list: Alex Bars, Dino Boyd, Corey Levin, Sam Mustipher. Three of the four are about to enter their second year in the league. Sports books are pretty bored this days but I’m betting the odds are about 50-1 that any of these four guys is in the starting lineup come the beginning of the season.

(Yesterday the Bears signed Germain Ifedi to a one-year deal.)

The Bears need to add a guard. But more than that, they need to add an attitude to this unit. Kyle Long was not only a terrific player when healthy. He was also the temperamental leader of the group. He brought the pissed off. Brought the angry. In many ways, without playing the same position, he was the emotional heir apparent to Olin Kreutz. (Right down to controversial physical altercations.)

It’s not necessarily a quantifiable quality. They don’t test for anger in Indianapolis. So I went through the NFL draft profiles of some players I thought fit this bill and looked for buzz words, catch phrases…etc. And I found some!

Kyle Long‘s draft profile on NFL.com: “Plays with attitude, backs up his teammates on the field, cleans up piles.”

Richie Incognito was described by ESPN as “fiery”.

Nick Mangold report from FootballFuture: “He’s tough and will not back down from anyone.” This was generally a pretty critical write-up of Mangold physically. He turned out to be a terrific player.

Cleans up piles.

Fiery.

Will not back down.

That’s what the Bears need up front.

Read More …

Sarah Scully and I have shared a home and cats for many years. And because I’m not supposed to have direct human contact with anyone else on the planet currently, she’s our guest this week! Is she an actual Bears fan? Well, yea. She kinda doesn’t have a choice.

She’s also in political news business, currently serving as one of the top dogs at The Recount. You should check it out their awesome content both on the website and on Twitter. Their brilliant Trump calendar video has taken over the internet and can be viewed RIGHT HERE.

DBB: You live with me. That seems like a crazy decision. Why do you do it?

Sarah: To me, you hung the moon and the stars. You are the person who brings me more joy than anyone else in the world. You are handsome, clever and very funny. You are human Prozac. Yes, it’s true that I am a neat freak and it sometimes feels like living with a wild animal. A bear, if you will, when it comes to cleanliness and order.  Still, you never roar and you give great hugs. You are also a hell of a cook. 

[Editor’s Note: Yep. All true.]

DBB: Do you notice an emotional change in me based on the Bears winning and losing? 

Sarah: One of the things I love most about you, that distinguishes you from past romantic interests, is you do not let a sports loss completely ruin your mood. If anything, you seem to gravitate towards seeking out positive things that can make up for the disappointment. For a long time, I hated football, driven by memories of my dad screaming at the Broncos during playoff games (“Damn you, donkeys!”), scaring the dog, scaring us. I saw nothing positive about a thing that could send my otherwise calm, thoughtful, psychiatrist father into hysterics. 

Read More …

About five years ago I was on the boardwalk at Point Pleasant Beach, NJ and noticed they had a game where you had to chip golf balls into a hole for big prizes. One of those prizes was a throwback Walter Payton jersey. Authentic. I remember thinking, “I’m a damn good chipper of the golf ball. I can get three of these in and win that jersey for about ten bucks.” Thirty bucks later, no jersey. (No golf balls in the hole either.)

So I walked over to the candy wheel at Jenkinson’s Pavillion, threw a few bucks down on my usuals: blue 2, white pop, Bob both ways. I won on the first spin and took home a box of red Swedish Fish.

In many ways, this is what the Bears just did at the quarterback position. They tried to get the Payton jersey. They took a financial risk on promising ability. But they ended up wasting time, wasting money, and settling on a reliable candy experience.

Nick Foles isn’t a sexy choice to be quarterback of the Chicago Bears. He isn’t going to sell tickets or jerseys. He isn’t going to be the focal point of the 2020 marketing campaign, or a promotional weapon for the television partners. Foles’ arrival in Chicago does not increase the chances – thank sweet Jesus – of the team appearing more prominently on primetime television over the coming season.

What Foles does is stabilize things. He calms the waters. The Bears looked at their 2019 and determined the quarterback was costing them games. They went and found someone who wouldn’t.

Read More …

Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Nick Foles was acquired by the Chicago Bears on Wednesday. Three thoughts:

• This is not a move meant to excite the fan base. This is move meant to show the fan base that the current starting QB is inadequate. Nobody trades fourth round picks to acquire backups. Foles is the starting quarterback in September.
• I leaked this on Twitter yesterday after trying to hold the information back for a while. The Bears have been trying to trade Mitch Trubisky for weeks. Nobody wants him. I don’t see in a competition with Foles moving forward because I’m not convinced Trubisky will stick around.
• Are we really that upset about the Bears giving up fourth round picks to IMPROVE at QUARTERBACK? Foles is not a great player but he’s the best QB on the Bears roster by a wide margin.

Onward!

If anything substantial occurs surrounding the Chicago Bears, I’ll be here!

A source, a trusted source for many years, sent me a text.

“Quinn. Big money. Floyd cut.”

The lack of words was jarring but I knew what it meant. This was happening quickly. To Twitter I went!

Feels weird to Tweet about football because there are just bigger things happening. But I’m guessing Leonard Floyd is not long for the Bears and they’ll add pass rush help. A Robert Quinn type.

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) March 17, 2020

Within minutes, Ian Rapoport broke the news of Robert Quinn signing a massive deal with the Bears. Within minutes of that, Adam Schefter broke the news of the Bears cutting Leonard Floyd.

Unless you’re one of those folks who obsesses over the salary cap, there’s simply no way to criticize the Quinn signing. He is one of the best pure pass rushers in the sport and solidifies one of the best front sevens in the game. This was an ideal free agency move for Ryan Pace because pass rush prospects – even mediocre ones – go early in the NFL Draft. Teams happily leverage future draft picks to acquire them. The Bears were unlikely to find ten sacks in the second round (or later). Now they don’t have to.

As for Floyd, for years he has frustrated many inside the walls of Halas Hall. He is a superior athlete and that athleticism has allowed him to develop into one of the best edge coverage guys in the league. But playing on the edge in NFL requires more than covering backs and tight ends. You must get to the quarterback. You must disrupt the passing game. And Floyd doesn’t do that. He’s a sloppy pass rusher, often out of control when he manages to evade blockers. In 2019, with Khalil Mack struggling through injuries for most of the season, Chuck Pagano implored Floyd to anchor the team’s rush. He could not.

The Bears still have major questions on the offensive side of the ball, and many of them will be answered in the next month or so. But the moves they made yesterday fortified their organizational strength. The 2020 vintage of the Bears will be led by their defense, led by their pass rush. Because Quinn and Mack will be the most feared duo in the NFL.

Reverend Dave and I first met Rick Pearson at the Billy Goat Tavern a bunch of years ago. Now, he’s family. He’s also one of the best political journalists in this country. He covers Chicago the way it demands to be covered. He’s dogged. He’s dubious. He’s one hell of a writer. But fuck all that. He introduced me to my favorite meal in the entire city: Nanna’s Gravy at Cafe Bionda in the South Loop. And that’s what matters.

Here’s Rick.

DBB: I’m surprised I’ve never asked you this during a Billy Goat session, but where did you watch the Bears win the Super Bowl? What was that experience like in Chicago?

Pearson: Ah, but I wasn’t in Chicago then. I was the political editor of the Rockford Register Star, a city about 90 miles northwest of Chicago and a place with a large number of Green Bay Packer fans, given its proximity to the Wisconsin border.

That, of course, gave me a chance to gloat about everything Bears, everything Chicago and I celebrated by hosting a chili party. For someone who grew up during the Gale Sayers, Jack Concannon and Bobby Douglass era (when under Douglass the Bears’ greatest offense threat was pass interference by the other team), I wasn’t sure that I would see such a glorious team, a team for the ages that could back up its swagger on the field. And it was finally a chance to enjoy the success that the friendly(???) neighbors up north often enjoyed.

DBB: You are one of the best political journalists in the country. (Yea, I said it.) But we’re entering a dangerous period for American journalism. Hedge fund takeovers of newspapers. The Athletic buying up sports writers. What do you tell the 22 year-old journalism major at Northwestern or Loyola when they ask you for career advice? Where should they go?

Pearson: I appreciate your confidence but there are several others in political journalism that I look up to and from whom I’ve learned and offered respect. But yes, we are in a tumultuous time for newspapers and journalism as a whole and I do not know where it will lead.

It was difficult attending a Bernie Sanders rally in Grant Park the other day when one of the earlier speakers, a local university professor, brought up the Chicago Tribune as endangered by hedge-fund ownership. I didn’t expect my paper to become part of a rally for a democratic socialist, especially with the long history of the Tribune and its editorial board support for Republicans.

So what do I tell the journalism major? It’s been something I’ve been doing for the last decade. First, the rules of journalism are the same no matter where you are—print, broadcast, photo, video, blog, Twitter, podcast, you name it. You write the truth, you write the facts, you write what you know, you don’t embellish and if you can, you provide the “why.”

Read More …

Everybody writes their “Free Agency Preview” – telling you what they think a particular franchise should or shouldn’t do when it comes to the off-season’s player acquisition period.

I’m not going to go too deep with cap hits or contract disputes. I’m just going to make a singular statement regarding each position group that sums up my thinking on that group. These are thoughts specifically about the coming weeks. Not the draft.

QB

This position is entirely about Derek Carr.

Carr is a very good quarterback and will only be 29 years old this season. If the Bears trade for him, they will have stability at the position for the next several years and a player capable of taking them to a championship. Every other option (Dalton, Foles, Keenum) is capable of getting this team to the playoffs but would require something of a miracle run to win three playoff games.

Needless to say, what happens at this position over the next month will define the 2020 Bears.

RB

I still like David Montgomery. I still like Tarik Cohen. Spending any significant money on running backs seems silly.

WR/TE

Both Andrew and Data spent time two weeks back detailing the Bears’ need for speed on the outside. But the Bears don’t need to be spending a ton of money on a third wide receiver.

The focus here will be tight end and all eyes are on Atlanta’s Austin Hooper, with rumors of interest from Jacksonville, New England and about eleven other franchises. He’s going to make a lot of money in the coming days. And that money should not come from Chicago.

Read More …

A blogger was born in N.J.

Who thought the QB’d be O.K.

Turns out he was wrong

And The Kid don’t belong

So who takes the snap op‘nin day?

Episode II in our series is a brief chat with JQ of the Q Brothers Collective. The Q Brothers are geniuses and their hip hop adaptations of classic works have been killing it with audiences for decades. Othello: The Remix. Q Gents. Q Brothers Christmas Carol. The Bomb-itty of Errors. All brilliant. Ever since he cold-emailed me years ago, he’s become one of my favorite people on the planet and a solid drinking partner. (Hell, he’s been to Josie Woods!) One day we’ll work together on something that goes up on a stage. One day.

DBB: The Q Brothers are a theatrical institution but you’re constantly on-stage when the Bears play. Does the score ever creep in your mind when performing? 

JQ: I usually keep my phone on mute and streaming live backstage. If I have an opportunity to freestyle and update the audience on the score, they really appreciate it. That said, if the Bears are getting crushed I usually just turn it off because I don’t want it to negatively affect the performance.

DBB: Your family’s pharmacy – Merz Apothecary – is one of the coolest fucking stores in the world. Is there a homeopathic remedy (non-booze) to handle a Chicago Bears loss?

JQ: According to the famous European herbalist and author Maria Treben – who wrote “Health Through God’s Pharmacy” (translated into 20+ languages) – we work off disappointment through the kidneys and one of the best for kidney health is goldenrod. So you could make some tea out of that I suppose. I also recommend reminding yourself that it’s football and we’re lucky to have the luxury of caring about stuff like that.

Read More …