Chicago Sports

That rookie left tackle Braxton Jones made it to this point is impressive. He’s a fifth-round pick from Southern Utah who immediately stormed the depth chart and has fought off every challenger to hold his spot.

But soon the challenges will come from the outside.

When the Bears face the 49ers on Sept. 11, Jones will be their first rookie to start at left tackle since Troy Auzenne in 1992. And he’ll begin his career by taking on two-time Pro Bowl defensive end Nick Bosa, who was fourth in the NFL in sacks last season at 15.5.

So the preseason finale Saturday against the Browns, whose pass rush is powered by two-time all-pro Myles Garrett and veteran Jadeveon Clowney, is as important for Jones as anybody else in the offense.

If either or both of them play — Garrett said Wednesday he was unsure of his status, though coach Kevin Stefanski indicated he plans to play starters — the Bears will get a good idea of how ready Jones is for Bosa.

“I’m just thinking about what’s ahead,” Jones said, trying to keep the conversation centered on the Browns rather than the season opener. “That’s a big task as well.”

In the meantime, Jones has prepared by sparring with Bears defensive end Robert Quinn in practice. Quinn set the franchise record with 18.5 sacks last season.

“It’s helped me progress a lot in the last few months,” Jones said. “But just making it come to life in the game is the biggest thing. Some of the rushers just don’t get to the point as quick as Robert Quinn does… They want to run around the edge.

“Robert Quinn gets to you really quickly, so then your hands are much quicker. But when it’s a longer wait, I still have to have that punch timing.”

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The Bears’ offense might have less talent than any team since the winless 2008 Lions, former Bears coordinator Mike Martz said Tuesday.

Writing about NFC North quarterbacks for the33rdteam.com, which counts former Bears consultant Bill Polian and former Bears head coach Marc Trestman among its contributors, Martz painted a doomsday scenario for Justin Fields.

“Fields is a guy that makes a lot of mistakes and is not particularly accurate at times,” he wrote. “He’s not a quick read-and-react guy, and he’s on a horrendous team.

“But I don’t know if I’ve seen an offense that bad in talent since the 0-16 Detroit Lions. They just don’t have anybody there.”

Martz was the offensive coordinator for the Lions from 2006-07 — leaving the year before the winless season — and served in the same role for the Bears in 2010-11.

“I’ve seen a lot of really good players go to bad teams, and then their career just never takes off,” he said. “And I think that’s what will happen with Fields. It’s going to take a long time for them to get talent there. He needs to be on a good football team behind really good players for a couple of years to learn how to play the position.

“And, when you put a guy behind a bad offensive line and you have no talent at wide receiver and you tell him to just go make big plays, he’s going to learn bad habits. You start doing stupid stuff just trying to survive.”

That’s the Bears’ worst nightmare — that they can’t find out what they have in Fields because of a below-average roster.

“I think he’s a talented guy as a passer,” Martz wrote. “But you don’t know how to evaluate him because he just doesn’t have anything around him.”

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When the new staff took over the Bears and scrutinized a roster that went 6-11 and got everyone fired, it was fairly easy to sort out which players had potential to be contributors on the next good team and which ones needed to go.

But safety Eddie Jackson was one of the few who didn’t obviously fit either category.

His future, with the Bears and as an NFL star, is up in the air. What he does this season, at 28, will determine his course in both regards.

And in a new defensive scheme under Matt Eberflus and coordinator Alan Williams, Jackson feels like that’s fully in his hands. The biggest difference is “being free” and empowered to be aggressive in the secondary.

The Bears freed up Jackson for that role in part by drafting thumping Penn State safety Jaquan Brisker in the second round. While at first it seemed they must have picked him with an eye on replacing Jackson, perhaps they were being honest when they predicted the duo would be a perfect fit.

“When I say ‘free’ I mean in more of a free safety role, being a guy that’s roaming in the post,” Jackson said. “I was down in the box a lot last year,and trust me, I love it, butI just love getting the ball, getting interceptions, scoring touchdowns. Those types of things.”

Those types of things would be very welcome.

The Bears led the NFL with a stunning 36 takeaways in 2018, including seven from Jackson. They plunged to 19 in 2019 (22nd in the league), 18 in 2020 (25th) and 16 last season (26th).

That’s a troubling trend for Eberflus, whose Colts were second in the league over the last four seasons with 107 takeaways. Jackson, more so than anyone else on the roster except possibly defensive end Robert Quinn, has a track record that suggests he’ll be an asset in that facet.

And to Jackson’s credit, he wants to. He reported to every voluntary practice in the offseason and eagerly bought into the new system as he looked to bury the last two frustrating seasons and re-launch himself as one of the NFL’s most dangerous defenders.

“Some people have a special talent to get to the football, and we definitely don’t want to suppress that,” safeties coach Andre Curtis said. “So within our defensive structure, [we] just allow him some freedoms to do his job and when he sees something to go make plays.

“Really good guys can see the opportunities present themselves within the flow of a game and then they go make plays. We definitely don’t want to coach the instincts and the playmaking stuff out of Eddie.”

Instead the Bears hope to maximize it.

Brisker is already helping with that, and he and Jackson have bonded on and off the field.

“I’m excited just to see what he’s capable of doing and just to see the type of dog he has in him,” Jackson said. “He’s a feisty guy. He wants to hit every play. To have a guy like that is exciting.”

And helpful.

With so much in his favor, it’s time for Jackson to reassert himself as an essential part of the Bears’ defense.

Jackson is the Bears’ second-most expensive player with a $15.1 salary-cap hit, and that’s a bargain if they rediscover the takeaway machine he was in his first three seasons. He had 10 interceptions, four forced fumbles and five touchdowns from 2017 through ’19 and was an all-pro in ’18.

General manager Ryan Poles would be happy to keep paying for that.

If it’s more of the same from the last two seasons, however, when Jackson played 1,846 snaps without a pick and had issues with tackling, it’ll be an easy call for Poles to bail on the remaining two years and $35.2 million on his contract.

But really, that decision is Jackson’s.

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The latest rankings of Illinois high school football teams in each class, according to an Associated Press panel of sportswriters.

Class 8ASchool Pts

1. Lincoln-Way East (7) 95

2. Loyola (2) 91

3. Glenbard West 79

4. Bolingbrook 75

5. Warren 63

6. Neuqua Valley (1) 54

7. Maine South 48

8. Marist 34

9. O’Fallon 20

10. Naperville North 16

(tie) Hinsdale Central 16

Others receiving votes: Lockport 12, York 5, Palatine 3, Edwardsville 1, Glenbrook South 1.

Class 7ASchool Pts

1. Mount Carmel (9) 99

2. Batavia (1) 83

3. St. Rita 72

4. Prospect 48

5. Willowbrook 42

6. Glenbard North 31

7. Jacobs 29

8. Brother Rice 19

9. Wheaton North 13

10. Moline 12

Others receiving votes: Pekin 11, Normal 9, Hononegah 9, St. Charles North 4, Hoffman Estates 3, Lincoln-Way West 2, Yorkville 1.

Class 6ASchool Pts

1. East St. Louis (9) 99

2. Prairie Ridge 81

3. Crete-Monee 71

4. St. Ignatius 63

4. Cary-Grove (1) 63

6. Lemont 47

7. Kenwood 41

8. Lake Forest 24

9. Rock Island 12

10. Harlem 9

Others receiving votes: Glenwood 8, Crystal Lake Central 6, Kennedy 6, Washington, IL 5, Simeon 4, Deerfield 3, Notre Dame 3, Richards 3, Antioch 2.

Class 5ASchool Pts

1. Kankakee (9) 108

2. Nazareth 80

3. Mahomet-Seymour (1) 75

4. Morris 67

5. Fenwick (1) 48

6. Peoria 46

7. Rockford Boylan 33

8. Sycamore 26

9. Sterling 25

10. Morgan Park 22

Others receiving votes: Glenbard South 19, Mascoutah 16, Highland 11, Marion 9, Morton 7, Kaneland 5, St. Patrick 5, Decatur MacArthur 2, Jacksonville 1.

Class 4ASchool Pts

1. Sacred Heart-Griffin (4) 76

2. Joliet Catholic (4) 71

3. Rochester 61

4. St. Francis 55

5. Richmond-Burton 46

6. Genoa-Kingston 28

7. Phillips 23

8. Effingham 16

9. Coal City 14

10. Wheaton Academy 11

Others receiving votes: Breese Central 10, Quincy Notre Dame 7, Carterville 4, Freeburg 4, St. Laurence 4, Peoria Notre Dame 3, Cahokia 3, Stillman Valley 2, Kewanee 1, Marengo 1.

Class 3ASchool Pts

1. Byron (8) 97

2. IC Catholic (2) 85

3. Reed-Custer 64

(tie) Tolono Unity 64

(tie) Williamsville 64

6. Princeton 53

7. Mt. Carmel, IL 36

8. Eureka 26

9. Monticello 23

10. Benton 18

Others receiving votes: Fairbury Prairie Central 9, Durand-Pecatonica 4, Hillsboro 3, Montini 3, Paxton-Buckley-Loda 1.

Class 2ASchool Pts

1. Wilmington (8) 98

2. Decatur St. Teresa (2) 84

3. Downs Tri-Valley 77

4. Pana 65

5. Breese Mater Dei 48

6. Farmington 40

7. Maroa-Forsyth 36

8. Nashville 29

9. Bishop McNamara 21

10. Bismarck-Henning 15

Others receiving votes: Sterling Newman 11, Mercer County 8, Rockridge 7, Knoxville 5, Erie-Prophetstown 4, Tremont 1, North-Mac 1.

Class 1ASchool Pts

1. Lena-Winslow (10) 100

2. Athens 71

3. Colfax Ridgeview (1) 70

4. Moweaqua Central A&M 64

5. Carrollton 58

6. Forreston 57

7. Gilman Iroquois West 39

8. Fulton 36

9. Arcola 29

10. Camp Point Central 21

Others receiving votes: Aurora Christian 12, Abingdon 9, Jacksonville Routt 9, Cumberland 7, Annawan-Wethersfield 6, Ottawa Marquette 4, St. Bede 4, Greenfield-Northwestern 3, Tuscola 2, Salt Fork 2, Galena 1, Mt. Brown County 1.

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Jason Lieser and Patrick Finley talk about what’s at stake in Saturday’s preseason finale for Justin Fields, Roquan Smith, Matt Eberflus and the Bears.

New episodes of “Halas Intrigue” will be published regularly with accompanying stories collected on the podcast’s hub page. You can also listen to “Halas Intrigue” wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Luminary, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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The following is a comprehensive list of healthy Bears wide receivers who caught at least one pass in an actual NFL game last season: Darnell Mooney, Equanimeous St. Brown, Dante Pettis and ….

Actually, that’s it. That’s the list.

Two-and-a-half weeks away from the season opener against the 49ers, the Bears have more than a depleted wide receiver room. They have a full-blown problem.

Byron Pringle has a quad injury and hasn’t practiced in almost three weeks. N’Keal Harry’s high-ankle sprain prompted surgery and a likely October return. Tajae Sharpe hasn’t practiced since his standout performance in the Bears’ preseason opener. Rookie Velus Jones played in Thursday’s preseason game against the Seahawks but has missed practice time with an injury both before and since.

Dazz Newsome, who caught two passes for the Bears last season, was so inconsistent in training camp that the team cut him Monday.

The Bears will keep six or seven receivers when they cut their roster down to 53 players on Tuesday. With so many question marks — because of injury, inexperience and a lack of past success — it’d be shocking if they didn’t add receivers cut loose by other teams next week. Those receivers would likely bounce to the Bears off the waiver wire, but it’s fair to wonder if general manager Ryan Poles will consider trading for one.

Unlike his predecessor, Poles is saving his draft assets — and his franchise’s salary allocations — for a season where the Bears will be closer to contending for the playoffs. But Poles knows that nothing is more important than putting quarterback Justin Fields in the best position to succeed this year. By the end of the season–and it’s really that urgent, as the team likely will have a high draft pick and the opportunity to consider other quarterbacks — the Bears need to know whether Fields is their future. Can they do that if he’s throwing to the current group of pass-catchers? The injuries to Pringle and Jones, whom the Bears have said will be ready for the start of the season, has obliterated what little depth they had.

St. Brown believes the Bears already have enough talent in-house, even with the injuries.

“Of course,” he said. “I think we’ve got enough with our whole team. Everyone’s a professional, everyone’s in the NFL, and they get paid to do what they do. Injuries are a part of the game… People get injured and go down, and the next person has to be ready and has to know what they’re doing.”

Getting a next-man-up speech in August is never a good sign. But it applies to more than one Bears position group.

Below is a comprehensive list of healthy Bears cornerbacks who played a defensive snap in the NFL last year: Jaylon Johnson, Kindle Vildor, Duke Shelley and Devontae Harris.

Second-year cornerback Thomas Graham hasn’t practiced all training camp because of a hamstring problem, while veteran Tavon Young — who at one point in his career was the highest-paid slot cornerback in the NFL –has missed most of the month with a lower-leg problem.

The Bears haven’t been able to evaluate either player in their defensive scheme — at least without squinting. How they’ll decide whether or not to keep them on their roster is an even bigger issue.

“I think those decisions will be with the scouting department side,” defensive backs coach James Rowe said this week. “I don’t really make the roster decisions as much. But I like both of them as players.”

Young spent most of that time training in water, Matt Eberflus said, before working his way up to dry land last week.

“He’s been in the pool a lot,” Eberflus said.

Next week, Poles should be, too. He needs to take a deep dive into the league’s talent pool. What he has right now simply won’t work.

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Mike Martz is not impressed with Justin Fields

Justin Fields has much more to do to impress a former offensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. Fields struggled in his rookie season last year. Many fans and analysts have given Fields a pass since he worked in Matt Nagy’s incompetent system.

Former Bears offensive coordinator and the architect of “The Greatest Show On Turf”, Mike Martz, isn’t one of those analysts. Martz recently criticized Fields and the Bears in an article for the 33rd Team. Martz isn’t sure the Bears will provide an environment for Fields to improve enough to be a thriving quarterback:

Then there’s Chicago’s Justin Fields. Fields is a guy that makes a lot of mistakes and is not particularly accurate at times. He’s not a quick read-and-react guy, and he’s on a horrendous team.

It’s going to be a rough career for (Fields) there. And I’ve seen a lot of really good players go to bad teams, and then their career just never takes off, and I think that’s what will happen with Fields.

It’s going to take a long time for them to get talent there. He needs to be on a good football team behind really good players for a couple of years to learn how to play the position.

And, when you put a guy behind a bad offensive line and you have no talent at wide receiver and you tell him to just go make big plays, he’s going to learn bad habits. You start doing stupid stuff just trying to survive.

Justin Fields needs more help

Martz knows about developing young quarterbacks, as he helped Kurt Warner when he was with the Rams. Warner had a lot of help around him there. Fields doesn’t have that luxury. Interestingly, Martz thinks it will be a “long time” before the Bears get him talent. The team will have money to spend next year. But will elite talent want to come?

General manager Ryan Poles has failed to acquire elite help for Fields this offseason. It’s not suitable for Fields development to be stuck behind a frail offensive line of gutless wonders. The Bears need to add some pieces to the roster before the season starts, so Fields has the opportunity to succeed and have a fair evaluation.

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MLB Pipeline has given the Chicago Cubs a new rating, and it’s pretty good.

Let’s be honest, the Chicago Cubs are not one of the best teams in the MLB. They are nowhere near close to the top of their division and have lost most of their games this season, however, they are also in the midst of what appears to be a major rebuild. That being said, the MLB Pipeline recently gave the Chicago Cubs a new rating, and it’s pretty good. According to the MLB Pipeline, the Cubs come in at number 10 in a top-10 system.

This makes the Cubs one of three other National League Central teams who have made it to the top ten. The Cincinnati Reds come in at number four, and the Pittsburgh Pirates come in at number 7. The St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers sit outside of the 10 spot rating, at 13th and 19th place respectively.

What is keeping the Cubs so highly ranked? Well, it mostly has to do with Pete Crow-Armstrong, who is their top prospect at the moment. Brennen Davis is their number two prospect, despite some injuries during this season. The Cubs have also been accumulating lots of young talent, with other promising players including Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Craig Kimbrel, and Anthony Rizzo.

Before this new ranking, the Cubs sat at number 18. According to Fansided, the last time the Cubs had a ranking this high they formed a championship squad with some of the players. Perhaps they will be able to do it again.

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For Bears center Sam Mustipher, the H.I.T.S principle that emphasizes hustle, intensity and playing smart should have been the easiest part of the transition from Matt Nagy to Matt Eberflus.

Mustipher has been living the H.I.T.S principle most of his football career. It’s how he became a starter at Notre Dame after playing on the scout team as a freshman. It’s how he became a starter in the NFL after being on the practice squad as an undrafted free agent as a rookie. He’s the embodiment of the H.I.T.S principle.

Or so he thought. It took just one preseason game for Mustipher to realize that his idea of the H.I.T.S principle and Eberflus’ idea of the H.I.T.S principle were two different things.

“It was an eye-opener for me after that Kansas City game, getting your grade sheet,” Mustipher said. “I’m a guy who prides myself on going to pick up the ball carrier, but I had loafs on the sheet. That’s something I’m not used to.

“I went back throughout the week like, ‘Shoot, I’ve got to practice harder.’ Because if you don’t practice hard, you’re not going to be able to do it in the game.'”

Mustipher’s story — embracing the H.I.T.S principle — has been arguably the most prevalent theme of Eberflus’ first season as the Bears’ head coach. Players who thought they were hustlers are learning there’s another level of hustle that can make a difference. Players who thought they were above the H.I.T.S principle — or just ignored it — learned the hard way that it matters.

“I didn’t buy in right away,” third-year cornerback Jaylon Johnson said. “It was something I wasn’t familiar with, something I wasn’t used to doing. So naturally there’s going to be some back-and-forth.”

Right around the time Johnson was working with the second team in OTAs, the importance of the H.I.T.S principle seemed to kick in for Johnson.

“Coming in, being in it, going through it in the spring — and now it’s like second nature,” Johnson said. “It’s the standard and as a leaders I have to push myself to pus other guys, to uphold that standard. I’m definitely used to it now. It’s natural. It’s what the expectation is.”

Eberflus’ H.I.T.S principle might have come across as hokey and collegiate when Eberflus introduced it upon being hired as the Bears’ head coach. What football coach doesn’t want his team to hustle and play with intensity? What football coach doesn’t put an emphasis on takeaways and taking care of the ball? What football coach doesn’t want his team to play smart?

But as Bears fans saw with Lovie Smith nearly two decades ago, it’s the obsession with it that can make a difference. There’s not a lot of quantifiable progress with the Bears after OTAs, mini-camps, training camp and two preseason games. But the impact and infectious nature of Eberflus’ H.I.T.S principle seems to show up more and more every time the Bears step on the field. Lovie’s best defenses were the same way — he just didn’t have an acronym to promote it.

And there’s a trick to instilling that mentality — otherwise every defense in the NFL would be playing like a pack of hungry wolves.

“You’ve got to be fanatical and relentless about it,” defensive line coach Travis Smith said. “And it’s not for everyone. It’s not easy. It’s hustle, intensity, takeaways and playing smart. But it’s not just some of the time. It’s all the time. It’s not just in games. If you don’t do it in practice, you’re not going to do it in games.”

You can already see the effect of the H.I.T.S principle in practice, but the true test will be in the regular season. If there’s one quantifiable impact, it’s with takeaways. Swarming to the ball and aggression lead to tipped passes that turn into interceptions and hustling players around the ball, ready to pounce on opportunity.

We’ll see if it makes a difference. The Bears were tied for 26th in the NFL in takeaways last season with 16. Eberflus’ Colts were second with 33.

So far, Eberflus can’t argue with the buy-in. That he got through to Johnson is a good sign. He’s a believer.

“It’s funny because we joke around with it,” Johnson said when asked how the coaching staff sells players on the H.I.T.S principle. “One of our quotes we said Shakespeare came up with is, ‘Thou who runneth the ball, good things shall happen.’

“[It’s] just really seeing the bright side of running. It’s not just, ‘You guys just run to the ball just because we say [it].’ [There’s] some rhyme and reason to why we do it. And once we see good things happen from running to the ball, it gives us more confidence to push ourselves to really run to the ball, because you never really know what could happen.”

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If you hear muffled sobs coming from a man cave or unintelligible muttering by the guy normally spouting misogyny, offer some thoughts and prayers.

Tuesday was a rough day for the “Nobody cares about women’s sports!” crowd.

Within an hour it was announced that the women’s college basketball title game will be shown on ABC and the NWSL’s championship will air in primetime on CBS. That’s right. National showcases for two of the biggest events in women’s sports, without the need for cable or a streaming subscription.

“Historic announcement for our league and our sport,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said.

And one that is long overdue. Not out of charity or pity but, rather, because women athletes have earned it.

Advocates have long insisted that, contrary to what the naysayers would have you believe, there’s a market for women’s sports. They just needed the right platform.

Ratings the last few years have proven that to be true.

The national championship featuring South Carolina and UConn was the most-watched college basketball game, men’s or women’s, on ESPN since 2008. The 4.85 million viewers represented an 18% increase over the 2021 championship game and a 30% rise since 2019.

The Women’s College World Series averaged 1.1 million viewers, the third consecutive year it’s been above a million, with the championship series averaging 1.6 million viewers. This after the Women’s College World Series and the College Cup, soccer’s national championship, set ratings records last season.

The WNBA announced that ratings for the playoffs are up 39% over last year so far, with Sunday’s game between the Dallas Wings and Connecticut Sun the most-watched playoff game in 15 years.

This after the league’s ratings on all networks were up 16% during the regular season, building on a 49% increase last year. The regular-season finale between the Seattle Storm and Las Vegas Aces, a sneak peek at one playoff semifinal matchup, was the most-watched WNBA game in 14 years, peaking at 1.1 million viewers.

National TV games for the NWSL are rare — expect that to change when the league’s three-year deal expires next year — but the league has averaged more than 400,000 viewers for its four games on CBS so far this season. That includes 456,000 for a preseason game between the San Diego Wave and Angel City FC, both expansion teams.

Last year’s NWSL title game drew 525,000 viewers, despite a noon Eastern start.

Oh, and Fox announced last week that it will air the U.S. women’s Oct. 7 friendly against England on the main network. This after the Three Lionesses’ victory over Germany in the European Championship final drew 17 million people, making it the most-watched TV show in England so far this year.

“I was told, ‘Oh, it doesn’t rate, Carol. There’s no eyeballs.’ And I’d go, ‘It doesn’t rate because no one can see it!’ ” Carol Stiff, who oversaw women’s sports programming at ESPN before retiring last summer, told USA TODAY Sports earlier this year.

“I keep using this term, ‘If you build it, they will come,’ ” Stiff said.

Now, the men committed to trashing women’s sports — and it is almost exclusively men — will point out that even with the improved ratings, the audiences for women’s sports still don’t compare to those for men’s sports. And that is, largely, true.

But that’s also like gloating about someone winning a 100-meter race after being given a 60-meter head start.

Title IX celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this summer, and the NCAA held the first women’s basketball tournament 10 years after the landmark legislation was enacted. The WNBA is in its 26th season, the NWSL its 10th. Of course they’re not going to be where the NFL, NBA and NCAA men’s tournament, all of which have been around for 75 years or more, are now.

Those leagues weren’t where they are now early on, either. It wasn’t until the NFL merger that every team had all its games on TV. Not until 1968 did networks show serious interest in broadcasting the NCAA men’s tournament. NBA games were still being shown on tape delay into the 1980s.

The potential for women’s sports is vast, and the announcements Tuesday are a reflection of that. If anyone says differently, well, that’s a reflection on them.

Read more at usatoday.com

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