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The Chicago Bears had an A+ caliber draft led by general manager Ryan Pace, but the roster could use some work. Preferably, cornerback, linebacker, and safety are positions that still need help after the outstanding draft over the weekend. Ryan Pace put together a fan-favorite NFL draft for the Bears over the weekend. His biggest […]

Chicago Bears: 3 positions that still need work after the draft – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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Chicago Bears 2021 NFL Draft: Ryan Pace worked magic in late rounds by Ryan Heckman

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Chicago Bears (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

What a weekend it was for the Chicago Bears, who absolutely dominated the 2021 NFL Draft.

Who knew that, just days after the draft was over, we would be looking at the national media giving rounds of applause for the job general manager Ryan Pace did. It was truly a memorable weekend, and Pace reeled a lot of doubting fans back in with the remarkable showing.

No draft pick was more exciting, around all of the NFL, than when the Bears moved up to number 11 overall to select Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields. That moment alone defined this weekend’s draft, because now that all of the draft grades are coming out, it’s hard to find an outlet that didn’t give the Bears an ‘A+.’

Fields certainly gives this franchise hope for the future. This is a team that has been so defined by poor or mediocre quarterback play that Chicago has become the butt of too many jokes over the years. Finally, it appears as those jokes are over.

Fields will boost the stock of a lot of Bears players from the get-go. The entire team’s stock has risen simply because of that one pick.

The 2021 NFL Draft was great for many current Chicago Bears players, and some more than others.

Over the weekend, there were a few players in particular whose stock rose a little bit for different reasons; mostly due to the fact that they didn’t see Chicago threaten their position in the draft.

That’s always an interesting part of the draft. Current players pay attention mostly because they want to see how much better the team gets, but also because they don’t want to get replaced. Take Andy Dalton, for example. No matter what Ryan Pace or Matt Nagy say, he has to know his days are numbered as the presumed starter.

A few of Dalton’s teammates, though, should be feeling pretty good about themselves at the moment. Some, in particular, very well could have been replaced over the weekend — or at least seen a future replacement drafted. These five Bears are the ones who can relax, for now, after the conclusion of the 2021 NFL Draft.

Next: 1. Robert Quinn

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Hollering along with Bad Noids’ punk rock is more fun than arguing with COVID deniers—and it’ll probably do more good.

Some folks would have you believe that everything is running smoothly, A-OK even, as the globe keeps spinning toward its next mass extinction—one that will almost definitely include us.…Read More

Chicago DJ and producer Jermaine Collins, aka Composuresquad, became a pillar of the city’s nightlife scene after hooking up with local dance collective and record label Them Flavors in 2013. He joined the crew the following year, and soon the name “Composuresquad” on a party’s bill became a sure sign it was worth attending.…Read More

The group was standing outside in the 2100 block of West Adams Street when a gray Audi SUV drove by and someone inside began fired at the crowd, Chicago police said.

Five people were wounded, one critically, in a shooting Sunday night on the Near West Side.

The group was standing outside in the 2100 block of West Adams Street about 11:10 p.m. when a gray Audi SUV, with three people inside, drove by and someone began firing at the crowd, Chicago police said.

A 29-year-old suffered two gunshot wounds to the abdomen and was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, police said.

A second man, 20, was struck twice in the back and taken to the same hospital in good condition, police said.

A 32-year-old woman suffered a gunshot wound to the foot and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition, according to police.

Another woman, 26, suffered a graze wound to the foot and a third woman, 21, was struck in the leg, police said. Both women were taken to Rush Hospital in good condition.

No one was in custody, according to police.

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Long before she was a multi-hyphenate, award-winning singer/actor/director conjuring different worlds on stages across the globe, E. Faye Butler was enamored of the places she could go via her View-Master. The low-tech, vaguely binocular-shaped toy popular throughout the 1960s was the forerunner to virtual reality goggles: Insert a circular cartridge of slides, hold the gadget to your eyes and you could behold everything from the rings of Saturn to the Great Sphinx to cartoon strips.

“When you had your View-Master, you could go anywhere.. I remember watching Bugs Bunny through it, and he was more spectacular than he was on television. Made me think I was in another world,” Butler said. The artist has devoted her 40+ year career to transporting audiences to other worlds, be it via an August Wilson drama or a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical or a Shakespearean tragedy.

This week, Butler flexes her director’s muscles, helming Artemisia Theatre’s world premiere of Dallas native Lauren Ferebee’s “Goods.” The outer-space sci-fi drama follows Marla (Julie Proudfoot) and Sam (Shariba Rivers), two intergalactic garbage collectors charged with hauling loads from an increasingly uninhabitable earth and dumping it in distant outer-space asteroid belts.

As their tin-can rocket rattles toward the wastelands of deep space, the women must negotiate quarters tighter than an off-Loop theater dressing room and a cargo hold they are not, under any circumstances, to look inside.

“The spaceship is like being on tour. Circumstances make you get close fast,” Butler said, recalling years on the road with shows including “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Mamma Mia!,” “Dinah Was” and both “Nunsense I” and “Nunsense II.”

Screen shot courtesy Artemesia Theatre

“Goods” is set roughly a century from now, but it’s all often alarmingly recognizable, Butler added. As Marla and Sam take their astral road trip, the earth they left behind is drowning. Rising seas have submerged New Orleans and Miami, among other places. Countless climate refugees wind up parked indefinitely at interstellar “wait stations.” Despite the endless flooding on earth, potable water is a rare commodity. Space itself — for things, for people, for planets — is diminishing as well.

As Ferebee puts it: “It’s like the great Pacific plastic garbage patch, only there’s many of them and they’re also in space.”

Garbage — who defines it and what they do with it — is at the heart of “Goods,” which won the 2021 Planet Earth Arts Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, given to plays addressing environmental and social justice issues. The drama is also up for the Kennedy Center college festival’s National Partners in American Theatre Award.

“Trash is something I think a lot about — I see it as a metaphor for the way we try to push things away from us, and how sometimes they float right back in. Like the garbage in the ocean,” Ferebee said. “My mother has been an environmental activist since the 1980s. Some of my earliest memories are going to Earth Day events with her. People laughed at her for believing in global warming. The environment has been a driving force in my work, so it means a lot to have that recognized.”

Ferebee grew up an avid fan of “Star Trek.”

” ‘Voyager,’ ‘Deep Space 9,’ also ‘Babylon 5,’ they were my shows as a kid in the ’90s,” she said. “As an adult I returned to them and I was like, ‘Wait. There’s a whole class of people missing here. Where are the janitors? The garbage collectors? Who cleans the bathrooms?’ I wanted to make the women in my play totally ordinary, dealing with those issues and counting down the days and the dollars until they can retire.”

“It was also important to me that the women be older,” Ferebee said of Sam and Marla, who are in their 40s and 50s, respectively. “I’ve heard my mom talk about how she feels invisible now in a way she didn’t when she was younger – I wanted to show those women.”

Butler has been president of Artemisia’s board for just over a year. She said she was drawn to the company by Proudfoot, its founding artistic director, and her mission to tell stories by and about women.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

“There’s not enough of those,” Butler said. “It’s important that we elevate women — I’ve worked toward that all my career.”

That career is formidable: So far, it includes four Black Theatre Alliance Awards, two Black Excellence Awards, two Helen Hayes Awards, nine Jeff Awards, the Sarah Siddons Leading Lady Award and the Guy Adkins Award. Butler’s plaudits are primarily for her work on stage, but she’s hardly new to directing. She’s helmed musicals for Portland Stage, Peoria Player, Columbia College and Old Town Playhouse.

“I’m a good director because I’ve been on the other side of the table for so long too,” Butler said. “I think ‘Goods’ looks at how we want quick solutions for problems that have been around for a long, long time. You just take your garbage, and put it somewhere else. Well eventually, that doesn’t work so well. It’s a question ‘Goods’ makes truly compelling.”

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A man suspected of shooting a 62-year-old in Calumet City remains barricaded in his home, as negotiations continue for over 14 hours.

Officers responded to reports of a shooting about 1:45 p.m. in the 100 block of North State Street, according to Calumet City spokesman Sean Howard. They found the 62-year-old with multiple gunshot wounds, possibly sustained during a confrontation with another man, Howard said.

He was transported to an area trauma center where his condition remained unknown.

The suspected shooter, a 52-year-old man, fled the scene to his home in the 100 block of Maple Court, Howard said.

When officers attempted to make contact and approach the home several shots were fired at police, according to Howard.

Officers did not return fire and the South Suburban Emergency Response Team was called to the scene, Howard said.

Negotiators have made contact with the man and efforts have been ongoing for over 14 hours.

Nearby portions of the Bishop-Ford were closed until about 3:30 a.m.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.

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A man and woman were carjacked in the 200 block of West Illinois Street.

A man and woman were injured in a carjacking Sunday night in River North on the Near North Side.

About 9:22 p.m., a 26-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman were sitting in a white 2020 Toyota in the 200 block of West Illinois Street, Chicago police said. The man got out of the vehicle and two males jumped in and attempted to flee with the woman still inside.

The woman was able to jump out before they drove off, and the man was struck in the face as he attempted to help the woman, police said. They refused medical treatment.

Area Three detectives are investigating.

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