The first match of the regular season pits Louisville against Kansas City with kickoff scheduled for 4 p.m. followed by OL Reign vs. the North Carolina Courage and Gotham FC vs. the Houston Dash.
The Red Stars open their season on the road against the Portland Thorns at Providence Park on May 16 at 6 p.m. giving them over two weeks to recover after their Challenge Cup finale against OL Reign tonight.
All kickoff times are subject to change because the league doesn’t have its official broadcast schedule yet.
Fans will be in attendance at SeatGeek Stadium in a limited capacity for the Red Stars’ home opener May 22 against Gotham FC at 7 p.m. The team will only be selling single-game tickets through July due to the fluidity of the pandemic.
The Red Stars COVID-19 protocol includes disinfecting all areas prior to games, required face coverings at all times except when eating and drinking and all fans will be strongly encouraged to use mobile ticketing through the team’s new app.
The 2021 season features all 10 clubs in 24 matches. The Red Stars will play 12 home matches and 12 away. The regular season begins on the road and finishes on the road for the Red Stars on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. against the Orlando Pride at Exploria Stadium.
Coming off five consecutive league appearances, the Red Stars will look to make it six and play in their third straight championship match. The league’s expanded playoff pool will include six teams, with the top two seeds receiving a first-round bye and is set to begin in November.
The NWSL Championship is set to be played on Nov. 20.
Hanson Stadium, 5501 W. Fullerton Ave., is being considered as a training site for the ChicagoFire soccer club, said Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th). | Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
The property in Belmont Cragin serves as a campus for three schools and as a host for prep sporting events.
The Chicago Fire have inquired about using Hanson Park, a large public parcel that includes three schools and a stadium used for prep athletic events, as a training center for its players, a Northwest Side alderman said Tuesday.
Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) said the soccer club began “very preliminary” discussions with him Monday about Hanson or other locations in Belmont Cragin. He said he shared initial details with some community leaders and gotten positive feedback.
But he said any pact with the Fire will raise complicated issues. Hanson Park serves as a campus for two elementary schools and one high school, Prosser, and any agreement with the Fire must involve public benefits, Villegas said.
“A point of the proposal would be to invest in the stadium,” he said. Villegas said Hanson Stadium, a prep sports venue for decades at 5501 W. Fullerton Ave., needs substantial repairs and its turf is in poor shape. “I threw out a first pitch and I twisted my ankle there,” he said.
“At the end of the day, my community members will have to determine if this is what they want to see.”
Villegas declined to mention other sites in Belmont Cragin or his ward that were raised with the Fire.
The Chicago Public Schools owns Hanson Park and the stadium. CPS officials provided no comment Tuesday.
“The devil is in the details. We will have to find out what they [the Fire] want and what CPS wants,” Villegas said.
Fire spokesman Sean Dennison declined to comment beyond an email that said, “As we have previously stated, the club is exploring various locations for a potential performance center. If we have more to share, we’ll do that at the appropriate time.”
The Fire practices at the former site of its home games in Bridgeview, what’s now called SeatGeek Stadium. Its lease at the publicly owned facility expires in late 2036, but there are options for early cancellation.
The MLS club has been trying to get closer to its fan base. Villegas said the Fire identified Belmont Cragin as a preferred site for a training center because soccer is popular with its growing Latino population. Many Polish people also live nearby.
The club’s home games are at Soldier Field under a lease signed with the Chicago Park District in 2019. Play began there last year under a lease that, with renewal options, could last for 11 years.
Under owner Joe Mansueto, the Fire has said any training facility would emphasize community events and programs and not be a walled-off facility for its athletes. In January, he told the Chicago Sun-Times, “I think the long-term goal is to have a training facility somewhere in the city, and so we are looking for land, 20-25 acres. Unfortunately, in a well-developed city like Chicago there’s not a lot of large parcels lying around, but we’ve been looking for the past year.”
Mansueto said Bridgeview and its mayor, Steven Landek, have been “great partners” and he expects the team will remain in the village in some form. “At the same time, I think the Chicago Fire should have a major training facility in the city. We are looking. I don’t have anything to announce today, but we are out there looking and we hope to make progress on that front in 2021,” he said.
The Chicago Cubs have struggled offensively throughout the 2021 season but one player that has returned to superstar form is Kris Bryant. There is no question that Bryant struggled during the 2020 season. Injuries limited Bryant to only 34 games last season and that resulted in a .206/.293/.351 slash line with 4 home runs and […]
Andrew Shaw made his career not with overwhelming natural talent but rather with a tenacious work ethic, a hunger to do the little things well and the flexibility to fit anywhere in the Blackhawks’ lineup.
Shaw’s Hawks tenure is no more — the 29-year-old forward officially retired Monday. But looking at the Hawks’ roster now, it’s easy to pick out the player bringing many of the same elements: Brandon Hagel.
“You see a little of me in ‘Hags,’ for sure,” Shaw said Monday. “[He] can skate, get on forechecks and play physical. That’ll help in his career.”
“Coming up into the ranks, [Shaw] was the comparable I got from a lot of people and teams,” Hagel added. “I definitely do see myself in him, playing a little bit the same way. [It’s] nice to hear those things, especially from him.”
Shaw wasn’t drafted until the fifth round in his third year of eligibility, and even then expectations were low. The Hawks didn’t realize what they had in him until he arrived at summer development camp and began “playing like it was the Stanley Cup Final,” as general manager Stan Bowman recalled Monday.
Hagel, meanwhile, was a sixth-round pick — and the team that picked him, the Sabres, never actually offered him a contract. Upon his arrival in the NHL this season, it was Shaw who integrated him into the Hawks and took him under his wing.
“When you come into a new group, it’s tough sometimes,” Hagel said. “You’re with some famous people and you’re a little bit nervous. But he was the first to welcome me here. It just made it so much easier on me.”
Hagel benefits from more inherent hockey skill than Shaw ever did. His skating speed, perhaps the biggest factor in his immediate success this season, in particular blows Shaw out of the water.
Shaw knows it, too: “He’s a lot more skilled than me, and faster than I was,” he said. But Shaw also knows how well he mastered the difficult act of bringing top-level performances to every NHL game, and thus wants to see Hagel “push himself to be more consistent.” Hagel hears that constructive criticism.
“Consistency is the biggest thing, especially playing in this league,” Hagel said. “That’s something he’d definitely bring up to me and talk to me about. It helps me. It puts my head in the right space and I know what I need to do, day in and day out.”
With only 45 career games and zero playoff appearances so far, Hagel has a long way to go to match Shaw’s impressive career accomplishments. But he seems on track to fill the same versatile role with the Hawks.
Shaw not only leaves a legacy of gritty hockey, however, but also a legacy of concussion awareness.
Scientists have learned an immense amount about the damaging effects of brain injuries just over the course of Shaw’s 10-year career. For him to play even this long — considering he suffered too many concussions to count — might’ve been risky, but to retire now also helps set a heartening new precedent for hockey players prioritizing long-term health.
And that’s something Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton, who ended his own playing career at 28 due to concussions, vividly understands.
“You want to be healthy for a long time,” Colliton said. “You want to be able to have a high quality of life after you’re done. [We had] those conversations [about] what I went through to come to my decision that…I couldn’t do it anymore. But it’s his decision. He had to do what’s right for him.”
“I talked to Jeremy a few times,” Shaw added. “He made sure I’m feeling better, that this is the decision I want. And if I ever needed to talk to him, he’s there for me… Just knowing [the Hawks] care and love me is all I need really.”
Former Hawks forward Daniel Carcillo, long one of the biggest critics of the NHL’s handling of brain injuries, tweeted Monday he found it “encouraging to see the [Hawks’] medical staff step up and be an advocate” for Shaw.
That’s indicative of the new era of concussion safety that all sports, particularly hockey, have entered. Shaw’s decision further cements it.
And he can count on Colliton to continue building a culture of mental health conscientiousness in the Hawks organization.
The NHL and Turner Sports on Tuesday formally announced a seven-year agreement that begins next season and will put three Stanley Cup Finals on the TNT cable network.
The world’s top hockey league is eager to replicate the success found on Turner by the NBA.
“From our standpoint, we looked at the strength of the Turner Sports portfolio, which is outstanding,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “They put a fun and innovative factor into all of what they do, and we’re excited to have that same treatment for our sports, and for our fans.”
Turner and corporate owner WarnerMedia surprised many with the acquisition. Longtime NHL partner NBC and Fox were seen as the favorites to get the second package after the league reached an agreement with ESPN last month.
NBC’s run of covering the league since 2005 ends after after this season’s playoffs. It is in the final season of a 10-year contract.
WarnerMedia News & Sports Chairman Jeff Zucker said Turner’s style and approach to covering the NBA and baseball will translate well to hockey. Whether it has the same vibe as its NBA coverage, which includes the successful “Inside the NBA” studio show, remains to be seen.
“Obviously I think that there’s a style to Turner Sports, but you can’t just copy ‘Inside the NBA’ on Thursday nights,” he said. “We’re going to bring that same approach to the NHL but also one that I think is innovative, fun and dynamic.”
Zucker said there haven’t been any decisions about studio talent or announcers. Charles Barkley is a big hockey fan, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he made an occasional appearance.
The deal includes up to 72 regular-season games per season, half of the first- and second-round playoff games on TNT and TBS as well as a conference final series. One of the regular-season games will be the NHL Winter Classic, which is played on New Year’s Day.
There are also live streaming and digital rights across WarnerMedia properties, including HBO Max and Bleacher Report. Zucker said there is the possibility that live games could be streamed only on HBO Max, but that isn’t likely until the 2022-23 season at the earliest.
Zucker also said it remains to be determined what days regular-season games will appear on TNT. The network has NBA games on Tuesday and Thursday as well as a successful wrestling show on Wednesday. The NHL has used Wednesday to air showcase games in the United States and Canada.
When the Stanley Cup Finals are shown on TNT in 2023, it will mark the first time since 1994 the NHL championship round will be only on cable. Bettman noted that TNT is available in 90 million homes and that content of major properties is not just confined to broadcast networks.
The agreement with Turner will give the NHL two network partners in the United States for the first time since 1998-99.
The NHL received $350 million in broadcast revenue from NBC ($250 million) and Disney Streaming Services ($100 million for digital rights) this season. The upcoming deals will average $635 million a year ($410 million from Disney and $225 million from Turner).
The league reached an agreement with Walt Disney Corp. last month that includes four Stanley Cup Finals, 25 regular-season games on ESPN and ABC, the NHL All-Star game and comprehensive streaming rights. That includes 75 regular-season games that will stream exclusively on both ESPN+ and Hulu.
It marks the first time since Turner broadcast Atlanta Flames games in the late 1970’s that the cable giant will air hockey. It also gives Turner its second championship property (it alternates the men’s Final Four with CBS.)
Turner now has the rights to three of the four major North American sports with NBA games on TNT and baseball on TBS.
Even though NBC is losing the NHL after the playoffs, the network said in a statement that it would take the same approach as prior seasons, which includes every playoff game being aired.
“Despite a lot of speculation to the contrary we remain friends, and we look forward to the future, each of us understanding why we made the decisions that we both made to reach this point.” Bettman said.
Bettman also said moving away from NBC — which holds U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics — will not play a role in deciding whether to allow players to participate in the 2022 Beijing Games. The NHL did not allow its players to participate three years ago in South Korea, ending a run of five consecutive Winter Olympics with NHL players.
ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — The FBI launched a civil rights probe Tuesday into the death of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man killed by deputies in North Carolina, as his family released an independent autopsy showing he was shot five times, including in the back of the head.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called for a special prosecutor as pressure built on authorities to release body camera footage of last week’s shooting. A judge scheduled a hearing Wednesday to consider formal requests to make the video public.
The FBI’s Charlotte field office, which opened the civil rights investigation into Brown’s death, said in a statement that its agents planned to work closely with the Department of Justice “to determine whether federal laws were violated.”
The independent autopsy was performed Sunday by a pathologist hired by Brown’s family. The exam noted four wounds to the right arm and one to the head. The state’s autopsy has not been released yet.
The family’s lawyers also released a copy of the death certificate, which lists the cause of death as a “penetrating gunshot wound of the head.” The certificate, signed by a paramedic services instructor who serves as a local medical examiner, describes the death as a homicide.
Brown was shot last Wednesday by deputies serving drug-related search and arrest warrants at his house in the North Carolina town of Elizabeth City, about 160 miles northeast of Raleigh.
The autopsy results come a day after Brown’s relatives were shown a 20-second clip of footage from one deputy’s body camera. Another family lawyer, Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, who viewed the video, said Monday that officers opened fire on Brown while he had his hands on the steering wheel of a car. She said the video showed Brown trying to drive away but posing no threat to officers.
Brown’s son Khalil Ferebee questioned why deputies opened fire.
“Yesterday I said he was executed. This autopsy report shows me that was correct,” he said Tuesday at a news conference. “It’s obvious he was trying to get away. It’s obvious. And they’re going to shoot him in the back of the head?”
The pathologist, North Carolina-based Dr. Brent Hall, noted a wound to the back of Brown’s head from an undetermined distance that penetrated his skull and brain. He said there was no exit wound.
Two shots to Brown’s right arm penetrated the skin. Two others shots to the arm grazed him. The pathologist could not determine the distance from which they were fired.
The shooting prompted days of protests and calls for justice and transparency. Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten II has said multiple deputies fired shots but released few details about what happened. Seven Pasquotank County deputies have been placed on leave while the State Bureau of Investigation probes the shooting.
The governor, a Democrat, said appointing a special state prosecutor to handle the shooting case would serve the interests of justice and preserve confidence in the judicial system.
“This would help assure the community and Mr. Brown’s family that a decision on pursuing criminal charges is conducted without bias,” Cooper said in a statement.
State Attorney General Josh Stein said state law puts control of criminal prosecutions in the hands of the local district attorney, so his office cannot intervene unless asked. He said he has offered assistance to prosecutors, but has only received an acknowledgment.
“For my office to play a role in the prosecution, the District Attorney must request our assistance,” Stein said.
District Attorney Andrew Womble, who oversees Pasquotank County, did not immediately respond to an email seeking reaction comment.
Wednesday’s court hearing on the video will consider petitions to release the footage, including filings by a media coalition and by the county attorney on behalf of the sheriff. A North Carolina law that took effect in 2016 allows law enforcement agencies to show body camera video privately to a victim’s family, but it generally requires a court to approve any public release.
It’s not clear how soon a judge could rule or how quickly the video would be released if the release is approved. In similar cases, it has sometimes taken weeks for the full legal process to play out.
The slow movement has prompted an outcry from protesters, the family’s lawyers and racial justice advocates, who noted that law enforcement agencies in other states have moved faster. In Columbus, Ohio, the day before Brown was shot, body camera footage was released within hours of an officer fatally shooting a 16-year-old Black girl who was swinging a knife at another girl.
Democrats in the North Carolina General Assembly filed a measure this month proposing that body camera video be released within 48 hours unless a law enforcement agency asks a court to delay its distribution. But the legislation faces long odds with the GOP controlling both chambers of the Legislature.
A key Republican lawmaker, state Sen. Danny Britt, issued a statement saying GOP lawmakers are open to considering improvements to the current law. But with a hearing set for Wednesday, he said, the process has had little time to unfold.
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Drew reported from Durham, North Carolina. Associated Press Writer Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased its guidelines Tuesday on the wearing of masks outdoors, saying fully vaccinated Americans don’t need to cover their faces anymore unless they are in a big crowd of strangers.
And those who are unvaccinated can go outside without masks in some situations, too.
The new guidance represents another carefully calibrated step on the road back to normal from the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 570,000 people in U.S.
For most of the past year, the CDC had been advising Americans to wear masks outdoors if they are within 6 feet of one another.
“Today, I hope, is a day when we can take another step back to the normalcy of before,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. “Over the past year, we have spent a lot of time telling Americans what you can’t do. Today, I am going to tell you some of the things you can do, if you are fully vaccinated.”
The change comes as more than half of U.S. adults — or about 140 million people — have received at least one dose of vaccine, and more than a third have been fully vaccinated.
Walensky said the decision was driven by rising vaccination numbers; declines in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths; and research showing that less than 10% of documented instances of transmission of the virus happened outdoors.
Dr. Mike Saag, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, welcomed the change.
“It’s the return of freedom,” Saag said. “It’s the return of us being able to do normal activities again. We’re not there yet, but we’re on the exit ramp. And that’s a beautiful thing.”
Some experts portrayed the relaxed guidance as a reward and a motivator for more people to get vaccinated — a message President Joe Biden sounded, too.
“The bottom line is clear: If you’re vaccinated, you can do more things, more safely, both outdoors as well as indoors,” Biden said. “So for those who haven’t gotten their vaccinations yet, especially if you’re younger or thinking you don’t need it, this is another great reason to go get vaccinated now.”
The CDC, which has been cautious in its guidance during the crisis, essentially endorsed what many Americans have already been doing over the past several weeks.
The CDC says that whether they are fully vaccinated or not, people do not have to wear masks outdoors when they walk, bike or run alone or with members of their household. They can also go maskless in small outdoor gatherings with fully vaccinated people.
But unvaccinated people — defined as those who have yet to receive both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson formula — should wear masks at small outdoor gatherings that include other unvaccinated people, the CDC says. They also should keep their faces covered when dining at outdoor restaurants with friends from multiple households.
And everyone, fully vaccinated or not, should keep wearing masks at crowded outdoor events such as concerts or sporting events, the CDC says.
The agency continues to recommend masks at indoor public places, such as hair salons, restaurants, shopping centers, gyms, museums and movie theaters, saying that is still the safer course even for vaccinated people.
“Right now it’s very hard to tease apart who is vaccinated,” Walensky explained.
She said the CDC guidance should be a model for states in setting their mask-wearing requirements.
The advice to the unvaccinated applies to adults and children alike, according to the CDC. None of the COVID-19 vaccines in use in the U.S. is authorized for children under 16.
In the small town of Oxford, Nebraska, population 800, hardly anyone wears a mask, and the school district dropped its mask mandate last month. Superintendent Bryce Jorgensen said maybe 10 of the 370 students are still covering their faces.
“What goes on in other states is what goes on in other states,” Jorgensen said. “You just can’t compare Chicago to Oxford, Nebraska. Things are just different.”
Dr. Babak Javid, a physician-scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, said the new CDC guidance is sensible.
“In the vast majority of outdoor scenarios, transmission risk is low,” Javid said.
Javid has favored outdoor mask-wearing requirements because he believes they increase indoor mask-wearing, but he said Americans can understand the relative risks and make good decisions.
He added: “I’m looking forward to mask-free existence.”
“The timing is right because we now have a fair amount of data about the scenarios where transmission occurs,” said Mercedes Carnethon, a professor and vice chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
What’s more, she said, “the additional freedoms may serve as a motivator” for people to get vaccinated.
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AP medical writer Carla K. Johnson in Washington state contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is so
Driving North on Michigan Avenue, the image became clearer near Wacker Drive.
Yup. That definitely looks like a tulip on the south exterior of the Sheraton Grand Chicago hotel. And that must be a sun with a spray of sunrays in the left corner.
If you’ve driven through downtown this past year, you’ve likely seen other images: a heart at the peak of the pandemic; a gingerbread man at Christmas; a martini glass at New Year’s.
Or maybe the nods to Chicago institutions: a Cubs “W,” the “LU,” when Loyola University progressed in the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.
“I’ll send an idea to the general manager and say, ‘What do you think?’ Then armed with a map of the building, the targeted windows and the room numbers, we unleash our fantastic engineering team,” said Sheraton’s chief engineer, Mike Dukelow.
“They go room to room, switching on the lights. It’s the room lamp and the standing floor lamp — right in front of the windows, with the curtains open.”
Like most of the hospitality industry, Sheraton, one of Chicago’s largest convention hotels, with 125,000 square feet of meeting space on the downtown riverwalk, was shuttered by the pandemic. Its doors closed Mar. 27, 2020, three weeks after COVID-19 halted all travel.
After it closed, 635 employees — 1,000, if you count part-time staff — was reduced to a crew of 32. General Manager Mark Lauer said there was a desire among remaining managers and engineers to connect with a city devastated by the rising death count.
“One of the managers first came to me and said, ‘Everyone’s putting a heart on their buildings.’ I told Mike, let’s do it. After the heart was up a number of months, I challenged him to come up with other ideas,” said Lauer, 63, who lives near his hotel.
Lauer has worked in the industry for 40 years. Before his seven years at the Sheraton was four years with the New York Hilton and nine with the New York Waldorf-Astoria.
Engineering staff at the Sheraton Grand Chicago turned on room lights to create an image of a martini glass on its exterior in honor of New Year’s Eve.Instagram/@barrybutler9
“At first we wondered if anyone would even notice. Then we started seeing photos of our window designs all over social media. It was bringing just a little bit of joy, which was all we were trying to do at a very difficult time for so many. And it’s been fun,” the hotelier said.
Like much of the industry, the Sheraton, at 301 E. North Water St., has looked forward to reopening in spring or summer, as vaccines took hold nationwide.
Local economies have begun emerging from a COVID-19 recession that pummeled the leisure and hospitality sector, and spring travel trends were encouraging for summer.
Bookings are starting to come in, and the Sheraton expects to reopen in June.
Illinois remains in a “bridge” phase to a return to normal, with the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association pushing for larger capacity limits for meetings, conferences and conventions.
Mike Dukelow (l), chief engineer, and Marcus Cornelious, director of sales and marketing, in the engineering room at the Sheraton Grand Chicago. One of the city’s largest convention hotels, the Sheraton has used designs on its massive windows as a way to stay connected to the Chicago community while shuttered this past year by the pandemic.Provided
“I’ll never forget last March. Everything happened so quickly. My department went from 27 people to 10 — by far one of the worst days of my career, just surreal,” said Dukelow, 50, of Oak Forest, who’s been with the Sheraton for nearly three years.
Prior to that was two years with London House, a year at Trump Tower, 12 1/2 at Ritz Carlton.
Surprisingly, turning the massive windows into an art canvas is very low-tech.
“I print out a picture, put it on a building map and start filling in the windows with a sharpie, then run white correction ribbon over the sharpie to simulate light, label the rooms on the ribbon, and then we go room to room, first of all turning off the old design,” Dukelow said.
“As simple as they’ve been — a snowflake, mug of beer for St. Patty’s Day, heart with ‘XO’ in the middle for Valentine’s — it takes several tries to get them right. Curves are hard to simulate with square windows. Sometimes you’re trying to light half a window.”
Marcus Cornelious, director of sales and marketing, also will never forget last March. For him, it was watching hard-earned bookings of thousands of guests cancel, one after the other.
Engineering staff at the Sheraton Grand Chicago turned on room lights to create an image of an “XO” — symbolizing hugs and kisses — inside a heart on its exterior in honor of Valentine’s Day.Instagram/@cakeyizumi
“About the time the governor’s stay-at-home order went in place, travel in general came to a screeching halt,” recounted Cornelious, 38, of the West Loop, who’s worked at the Sheraton two years.
Before that was The Glen for three years; and several years at New York City hotels — including two with W Hotels there — had followed 10 years with The Langham here.
“I remember sitting around the table, thinking, ‘What can we do to send a message of hope?’ That’s when we came up with the windows,” he said.
“After that initial heart image, people started tagging us in photos of our windows on social media, and calling the hotel, sending handwritten ‘Thank-you’ notes, saying the designs were uplifting them in such a dark time. It was really powerful,” he added.
“In the beginning, it was more about solidarity. Then we started to get more playful. There are brighter days ahead for all of us. And our visuals are changing to match that.”
The only thing scarier than the Bears’ quarterback hunt not going to plan this offseason is the notion that it did.
That, of course, would be ludicrous. General manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy surely haven’t decided to stake their careers on the right arm of Andy Dalton, a quarterback who’s won 24 of his last 65 games, right? Pace surely won’t let his tenure end having drafted Mitch Trubisky and not a single other quarterback, right?
By that rationale, it’s likely — if not certain — the Bears will add a quarterback this week. There’s room for one, too, with just Dalton and Nick Foles under contract.
Pace could trawl the depths of the trade market for someone like Gardner Minshew, who will be made irrelevant the minute the Jaguars draft Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence No. 1 overall Thursday night. He could take Stanford’s Davis Mills in Round 2 or Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond in Round 3. Both are perfectly defensible developmental projects.
Pace’s reputation, though, suggests he’ll think bigger and will at least explore a trade up from pick No. 20 to grab a quarterback.
After the Jaguars take Lawrence, the Jets are expected to draft BYU’s Zach Wilson. The 49ers traded three years’ worth of first-round picks to move up to No. 3, where they’ll take either Alabama’s Mac Jones, Ohio State’s Justin Fields or North Dakota State’s Trey Lance.
Pace could trade up to draft either of the remaining two quarterbacks — if he’s willing to pay a steep price. The Falcons’ No. 4 pick will cost more than the 49ers paid. If a quarterback slides, though, the cost would move from crippling to merely painful.
Drafting outside the top 10 for the first time, Pace is at the mercy of other teams.
“Some of it’s in our control, some of it’s not in our control,” he said Tuesday during his annual tight-lipped pre-draft press conferences. “It’s just exploring all the different options at the quarterback position and the positions throughout our team.”
A general manager who’s crowed about having a “a no-regrets mindset,” Pace takes home run swings, for better or — as it pertains to the first round — worse. He won’t shorten up his swing just because his career is facing a two-strike count.
Desperation is a great motivator. Not that Pace needs it –in his six drafts, he’s traded his first-round pick four times: twice to move up to draft Leonard Floyd and Trubisky, and twice more for Khalil Mack.
Beyond the top two quarterbacks, this year’s draft gets murky fast. Coronavirus concerns canceled the NFL Scouting Combine. Some players opted out of their seasons, while other conferences played shortened slates. Lance played one game last year, Mills five.
Tuesday, Pace ticked off what the Bears look for when they move up to take a player: a consensus among team scouts and coaches; physical skills; mental makeup; a clean medical grade; intelligence; and football IQ.
“As you’re putting this puzzle together, this pie chart together for each player,” he said, “it kind of gives you confidence when to go up.”
Pace said the Bears’ quarterbacks room could be a good incubator for a young passer. He praised the involvement of Nagy, offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo in draft prep. None of the three were on staff when Pace took Trubisky.
Pace said he meets frequently with chairman George McCaskey and president/CEO Ted Phillips, too, to keep them updated on the team’s draft plans.
“Every offseason there’s a storyline, right?” Pace said. “And every day there’s a different turn. And I just think bringing our staff and our ownership along on this storyline is a big part of my job …”
Pace has one more week to change the storyline. To do anything less would be admitting Dalton was the team’s storybook ending all along.
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