The ChicagoBears hit the mark after trading up in the first round to take quarterback Justin Fields. The Bears traded their 20th overall pick, 2022 first-round pick, 2022 fourth-round, and 2021 fifth-round pick to move to the 11th pick in the draft for Fields. An A+ start to the Bears draft, taking advantage of the Ohio State product surprisingly slipping out of the top ten.
Justin Fields arguably has the easiest path to being one of the oldest franchise’s best quarterbacks of all time. Chicago Bears fans should be excited that they may finally have their franchise quarterback.
The Chicago Bears put a lot of stock into this first-round pick that they made.
However, to quote the late-great Kobe Bryant, “Job not finished.”
The Bears still have work to do. The offensive line is key for them at this point. If they hypothetically were unable to draft a quarterback in the first round, they were undoubtedly going to go offensive line with the 20th pick in the draft.
That would have left them with some solid names still leftover in the first round like Christian Darrisaw and Teven Jenkins. Now, they have to sift through the rest of the names to get that job done.
Outside of that, other holes to fill include cornerback, wide receiver, safety, and interior offensive line. The loss of Kyle Fuller and the need for a running mate with Eddie Jackson are glaringly imperative at this stage for general manager Ryan Pace. It is time to dive into the day two draft strategies the Bears should take on. The Bears will have picks in rounds two and three on Friday night.
There are probably a dozen memes circulating right now that chart punk subgenres and the philosophical leanings they supposedly embody, and without even finding one, I’m confident saying that goth rock and postpunk would get tagged as the nihilists of the bunch. But that stereotype downplays the social and political histories of these gloomy genres.…Read More
Terry Prince, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s designee as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs, discusses changes in administration, communication, policies and infection control that he and others at the agency are implementing in response to a COVID-19 outbreak last fall at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home | (AP Photo/John O’Connor)
The report by the inspector general of the Illinois Department of Human Services said little was done to devise protocols for preventing or managing infections.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Consistent statewide procedures and ongoing drills that target infection response and other emergencies will be routine at Illinois veterans’ homes after COVID-19 caught the LaSalle Veterans’ Home unprepared and claimed 36 lives last fall, the state’s newly appointed director said.
Terry Prince, a 31-year Navy veteran and former senior adviser to the U.S. Surgeon General, has issued a six-point plan for improving readiness at the state’s veterans’ homes in Anna, Manteno, Quincy and LaSalle. The plan follows a blistering investigative report that laid out a string of miscommunications, lax policy and missed opportunities when the pandemic hit the home in LaSalle, 94 miles west of Chicago.
The report by the inspector general of the Illinois Department of Human Services, released Friday, noted that despite escaping all traces of the deadly respiratory illness for eight months after it entered Illinois, there was little done to devise protocols for preventing or managing infections. After the first four cases were reported Nov. 1, the virus spread to 60 residents and 43 employees as confused staff operated in an environment that was “inefficient, reactive and chaotic,” the report said.
“We need to train as if it’s always happening,” said Prince, who arrived in Illinois on April 1 from his post as superintendent of the Ohio Veterans Homes, where he administered three facilities. “When there is an absence of the virus we train even harder, so that when something does come to fruition, our people know exactly what to do and how to do it.”
The review found ineffective, alcohol-free hand sanitizer in abundant use and no one responsible for replacing it, staff members reporting for duty by taking their own temperatures and initialing results, and scant availability and use of personal protective equipment such as face coverings.
Confusion over evacuating a wing to prepare it for quarantining and other errors such as placing residents who tested positive for the coronavirus in a room with others who were not sick, then not monitoring the newly exposed residents afterward, compounded the problem.
Among Prince’s other initiatives are plans to develop clear, statewide policies applicable to each home; restructuring senior leadership with chain-of-command clarity and assurances that the homes are receiving proper clinical and administrative direction; filling key positions whose vacancies have doubled work for others; and providing all employees with an email address for receiving agency-wide notices and communicating their concerns.
Infection control will be a priority with the hiring of a director and creation infection-control committees at each home following standardized guidelines, Prince said.
“It’s always been important but it did come to light, over the course of this crisis, the significant amount of work that’s involved in being an infection control specialist,” Prince said. “Prior to COVID-19 you would deal with things like pneumonia, flu, MRSA … they were often a case-by-case basis. When COVID hit, you’re not only monitoring residents you’re monitoring every staff member who works there.”
The crisis struck LaSalle well into the period of COVID-19 entrenchment, and a year-and-a-half after a state audit recommended adopting consistent statewide policies as a result of a Legionnaire’s disease outbreak at the Quincy Veterans’ Home which led to 14 deaths and sickened more than 70 others. In December, the home’s director, Angela Mehlbrech, was fired and at Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s behest, the investigation was underway.
After three hours of critical questioning by a House committee in early January, director Linda Chapa Lavia, an Army veteran who had been a long-tenured member of the House herself, resigned.
LaSalle was not alone. There have been 15 COVID-19 deaths at Manteno and 25 at Quincy. Prince noted the enormity of dealing with “a worldwide virus that doesn’t play fair.”
“It spread across the country with a fierceness that no one could have ever predicted and unfortunately veterans homes across the nation were struggling in the same situation,” he said.
CLEVELAND, OHIO – APRIL 29: A fan holds a jersey after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced Justin Fields being selected 11th by the Chicago Bears during round one of the 2021 NFL Draft at the Great Lakes Science Center on April 29, 2021 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
ChicagoBears (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
The Chicago Bears had a really nice time at the 2021 NFL Draft. They traded up to select Justin Fields in the first round. They moved up from pick 20 to pick 11 after a large deal made with the New York Giants. Justin Fields was one of the five quarterbacks that people had pegged as the elite first-round talents this year. You can even argue that he was the second-best and the Bears were able to land him. It was an incredible night for Chicago.
1
Justin Fields
QB, Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears made a very nice first-round selection in the 2021 NFL Draft.
The Chicago Bears might have their quarterback. They haven’t had an all-time great one in the history of their historic franchise. A century has gone by and nobody sticks out as the clear number one guy. It has been sad but the hope is that Fields will change everything.
Ryan Pace messed up royally in 2017 when he traded up to select Mitchell Trubisky with the second overall pick. His job is on the line with this current pick but it has the feeling of a move that will work out for everyone involved. He was brilliant in his time with the Ohio State Buckeyes. He had good showings against good teams in high leverage moments and could simply be described as a winner.
The Bears signed Andy Dalton over the offseason which was not a popular signing at all. We don’t know who will be the week one starter but Fields will be the guy eventually. It is hard to predict how this will impact their 2021 season but it was a great draft all around.
Shorthead redhorse make notable spawning runs, but the path of Olaf Nelson’s Illinois-record shorthead was extreme: a Fox River tributary to Brookfield to Virginia.
On April 9, Nelson was fishing a redworm on a small hook and a couple split shot, “nothing fancy.”
Then came the moment, as he described on moxostoma.com.
“A bad cast into the pool under the bridge scared some shortheads downstream, so I quickly re-cast to where I thought they might stop,” he posted. “I couldn’t see through the reflection, couldn’t be sure of the depth or the structure of the creek bed. I must have guessed correctly, though, because for the first (and so far only) time this year I felt the signature redhorse tap, tap, TAP! and made a solid connection. . . . Weighed in the bag of my net she was an inconceivable 6-6.5 pounds.”
He said as he landed the fish, he “knew it was a record. Ever since I caught one and blew it a few years ago, I’m really attuned to that particular record.”
Indeed. Nelson founded moxostoma.com (moxostoma is the genus of redhorse).
“In 2007, I was looking up something about fly fishing in Minnesota,” he said. “I heard about fly fishing for bigmouth buffalo near Northfield [Minn.].
“Then I found Roughfish.com and that changed my life. I was getting bored with bass and trout and I found I was fishing right over top of more hard fighting and interesting fish.”
As a lover of redhorse, Nelson had a dilemma late that Friday afternoon.
“I wanted to keep it alive, so I could release it, but selfishly I also wanted to get that record and wanted that fish to be official,” he said.
He had good reason for wanting the fish officially certified. Some shorthead records are so far off as to deserve to be in absurdist theater.
He tried to reach an Illinois Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist, but it was too late. So he put it on ice. The next morning he weighed it on the certified scale at Tischler Finer Foods in Brookfield at 4.8 pounds (4 pounds 12.8 ounces). Illinois fish records are kept by pounds and ounces.
A couple days later, streams biologist Steve Pescitelli certified it. Nelson completed the paperwork and sent it to Springfield, He froze the fish, then sent it to the lab of the redhorse authority, Robert Jenkins, professor emeritus at Roanoke College. Jenkins measured it as a total length of 533 mm, virtually 21 inches, and is preparing the skeleton as a museum specimen and will age the fish.
One of the cool things redhorse do is run up streams, then build nests when spawning and one female is usually attended by several males.Illinois Department of Natural Resources
“They are cool fish and there is nothing like them that run up the creeks and build nests,” Pescitelli said. “Shorthead are like salmon, build nests and run back out to the river. I am sure the larvae coming down provide food for lots of other fish.”
Pescitelli emailed photos of redhorse on their spawning runs on a Fox tributary, where they “fanned the finer gravel out (with their tails) to expose the larger cobble where they lay the eggs. The water circulates down through that larger stone to keep the eggs well oxygenated.”
Nelson’s record supplants one of the coolest tales in Illinois fishing. On April 25, 2008, Andrew Chione, then 15, caught the previous Illinois-record shorthead (3-11.8) from virtually the same area of the Fox as where his brother John caught the Illinois-record silver redhorse (6-11.4) the day before.
Andrew Chione with the previous Illinois record shorthead redhorse, caught April 25, 2008, a day after his brother John caught the Illinois record silver redhorse.Provided
“I do not believe my new Illinois state record was the biggest shorthead that ever lived,” Nelson wrote. “Until I see some evidence to the contrary (and I am actively seeking it), however, I will say that she might be, as one biologist suggested, the biggest verifiable shorthead redhorse on record.”
Another look at Olaf Nelson’s Illinois-record shorthead redhorse.Provided
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Consistent statewide procedures and ongoing drills that target infection response and other emergencies will be routine at Illinois veterans’ homes after COVID-19 caught the LaSalle Veterans’ Home unprepared and claimed 36 lives last fall, the state’s newly appointed director said.
Terry Prince, a 31-year Navy veteran and former senior adviser to the U.S. Surgeon General, has issued a six-point plan for improving readiness at the state’s veterans’ homes in Anna, Manteno, Quincy and LaSalle. The plan follows a blistering investigative report that laid out a string of miscommunications, lax policy and missed opportunities when the pandemic hit the home in LaSalle, 94 miles (151 kilometers) west of Chicago.
The report by the inspector general of the Illinois Department of Human Services, released Friday, noted that despite escaping all traces of the deadly respiratory illness for eight months after it entered Illinois, there was little done to devise protocols for preventing or managing infections. After the first four cases were reported Nov. 1, the virus spread to 60 residents and 43 employees as confused staff operated in an environment that was “inefficient, reactive and chaotic,” the report said.
“We need to train as if it’s always happening,” said Prince, who arrived in Illinois on April 1 from his post as superintendent of the Ohio Veterans Homes, where he administered three facilities. “When there is an absence of the virus we train even harder, so that when something does come to fruition, our people know exactly what to do and how to do it.”
The review found ineffective, alcohol-free hand sanitizer in abundant use and no one responsible for replacing it, staff members reporting for duty by taking their own temperatures and initialing results, and scant availability and use of personal protective equipment such as face coverings.
Confusion over evacuating a wing to prepare it for quarantining and other errors such as placing residents who tested positive for the coronavirus in a room with others who were not sick, then not monitoring the newly exposed residents afterward, compounded the problem.
Among Prince’s other initiatives are plans to develop clear, statewide policies applicable to each home; restructuring senior leadership with chain-of-command clarity and assurances that the homes are receiving proper clinical and administrative direction; filling key positions whose vacancies have doubled work for others; and providing all employees with an email address for receiving agency-wide notices and communicating their concerns.
Infection control will be a priority with the hiring of a director and creation infection-control committees at each home following standardized guidelines, Prince said.
“It’s always been important but it did come to light, over the course of this crisis, the significant amount of work that’s involved in being an infection control specialist,” Prince said. “Prior to COVID-19 you would deal with things like pneumonia, flu, MRSA … they were often a case-by-case basis. When COVID hit, you’re not only monitoring residents you’re monitoring every staff member who works there.”
The crisis struck LaSalle well into the period of COVID-19 entrenchment, and a year-and-a-half after a state audit recommended adopting consistent statewide policies as a result of a Legionnaire’s disease outbreak at the Quincy Veterans’ Home which led to 14 deaths and sickened more than 70 others. In December, the home’s director, Angela Mehlbrech, was fired and at Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s behest, the investigation was underway.
After three hours of critical questioning by a House committee in early January, director Linda Chapa Lavia, an Army veteran who had been a long-tenured member of the House herself, resigned.
LaSalle was not alone. There have been 15 COVID-19 deaths at Manteno and 25 at Quincy. Prince noted the enormity of dealing with “a worldwide virus that doesn’t play fair.”
“It spread across the country with a fierceness that no one could have ever predicted and unfortunately veterans homes across the nation were struggling in the same situation,” he said.
The Chicago Bears stole the show on Day 1 of the 2021 NFL Draft and traded up for Justin Fields.
What a night it was for Ryan Pace, Matt Nagy, the Bears and their entire fan base.
In a move that many are already calling the “steal of the draft,” the Bears moved up and selected Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields at pick no. 11 overall.
The Bears traded this year’s no. 20 pick, next year’s first-round selection, along with a fourth and fifth rounder to move up nine spots and get their franchise quarterback. Fields is officially a Bear, and the fans are understandably excited.
It still feels surreal that Pace made the move to go up and get his guy in Fields. It’s almost reminiscent of the morning fans woke up to the news that Khalil Mack was a Bear. Similarly to the Mack trade, and his impact on the defense as a whole, Fields will impact the offense.
Every offensive starter for the Chicago Bears is immediately leveled up due to the Justin Fields pick.
The Bears’ biggest problem for the last few years has been their inability to score points. Their offense has not been able to sustain drives and, in two out of the last three seasons, the playoff berths have been one and done exits.
Fields has big-game experience. He’s been there and performed well on college football’s biggest stage. He’s played against the best of the best in teams like Clemson and Alabama, and he’s played at a high level. Now, he gets to play in the black and blue division — a division where the Bears’ quarterback play is typically the butt of many jokes.
The jokes end here, folks. Fields is the second-best quarterback in this draft, and has been for a long time now. Despite Zach Wilson and Trey Lance going ahead of him, the Bears landed the second-best passer to Trevor Lawrence. Pace worked his magic and pounced when he had the opportunity.
Now, the Bears have plenty of reason to be hopeful about a playoff run in 2021 — and years to come. The offense is going to level up in a big way this coming season. Specifically, Fields is going to impact these three players more than others.
Justin Fields’ arrival at Halas Hall is creating excitement around the Bears for the first time in a good while. | Nati HarnikAP
The Bears drafted a quarterback. And the fans are … actually happy.
The Bears traded for a quarterback! Patrick Finley, Jason Lieser and Mark Potash break down how it happened — and wonder whether, between Justin Fields and Aaron Rodgers, this is the happiest Bears fans have been in years.
A male passenger, whose age was not immediately known, was shot and taken in critical condition to the University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago Fire officials and state police said.
The male driver and female passenger were not injured, state police said.
Thursday night, two men were wounded in a shooting in Brighton Park on the Southwest Side.
The men were walking on the sidewalk about 8:15 p.m. in the 3500 block of South Francisco Avenue when a dark-colored vehicle pulled up near one of the men and someone inside began firing shots, police said.
A 26-year-old man was shot in the chest and stomach and was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital in serious condition, police said. Another man, 61, was struck in the leg and was taken in good condition to St. Anthony Hospital, police said. He was not the intended target, according to police.
Two other men were wounded in a shooting in Lawndale on the West Side.
A 46-year-old man was found on the front porch of a home about 7 p.m. in the 800 block of South Karlov Avenue, police said. He was shot in the shoulder and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition, police said. Another man, 37, self-transported to the same hospital in good condition, according to police.
A 31-year-old man was seriously hurt in a shooting in Austin on the West Side.
The man was getting out of a vehicle about 6:55 p.m. in the 200 block of South Lotus Avenue when someone approached him and fired shots, police said. He was struck in the neck and was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition, police said.
In the day’s first reported attack, two men were shot inside a home in Austin on the West Side.
The men, 23 and 21, were inside the residence in the 5200 block of West Congress Parkway about 6:15 a.m. when someone they knew fired at them through the window from the alley, police said.
The 23-year-old was struck in the back and brought to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized, police said. The younger man was struck in the left knee and taken to the same hospital in good condition.
The Bears envision Fields as their long-term answer but still plan on Dalton opening the season as their starter.
They’ve said this before.
Hours after trading up to draft Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields at No. 11, general manager Ryan Pace said free agent signee Andy Dalton remains the Bears’ starter — just like they said of Mike Glennon when they drafted Mitch Trubisky in 2017.
To be fair, Glennon did open that season as the starter, but played his way out of the job after four games.
“Matt [Nagy] has spoken to Andy Dalton tonight; that communication and clarity for us is really important,” Pace said. “Andy is our starter, and we’re gonna have a really good plan in place to develop Justin and do what’s best for our organization and win games.”
The Bears signed Dalton for one year, $10 million and assured him he’d be their starter. It was a crucial part of their recruiting pitch because Dalton had a strong offer from the 49ers.
Pace cracked the door open slightly for Fields to beat out Dalton, but still indicated the plan is to start Dalton and have Fields learn behind him.
“We just have to let it play out,” Pace said. “One of the best feelings in the world would be, ‘Hey, we’re rolling, we’re playing really good football, we’re winning and we’re looking over there and we’re seeing this guy and we all know — everyone in the building knows — hey, we’ve got a guy.
“As these guys come into this, even all the experiences they have at the college level, growing and watching tape, reading defenses, working in the huddle… It’s just so new for these guys, but it’ll be a daily process, a daily evaluation. But we’re excited to let that play out.”
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