Akiem Hicks will miss a good chunk of the regular season
Former ChicagoBears defensive tackle Akiem Hicks sustained a severe injury in Week 2. Hicks, signed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this offseason, had to leave in the middle of the team’s game with a foot injury against the New Orleans Saints.
Reports came out Tuesday that the Pro Bowl athlete will miss at least a month of football. Per Adam Schefter, Hicks the foot injury came as he tore the plantar fascia in it.
Hicks had a stellar run for the Bears from the 2016-2021 season when he came up with 31 sacks. His efforts on the field earned him a Pro Bowl nomination in 2018. Hicks was a part of the aging crew of Bears stars that left this offseason to avoid the team’s rebuilding phase and try to chase a Super Bowl with a new team. The Buccaneers are considered to be a team that will contend for a Super Bowl this season.
Hicks has made comments about the Bears organization after leaving Chicago. He took shots at the quarterbacks he played with during his time with the Bears.
An excerpt from DeForge’s Birds of Maine Credit: Courtesy Drawn & Quarterly
On the moon, there are no humans. The birds that populate the lunar planet don’t get caught up in ideas like weekends or “the economy.” They stay connected via a vast fungal network, and there is plenty of universal worm (there’s one big worm that they all eat) to keep everyone fed.
Michael DeForge’s latest graphic novel, Birds of Maine, chronicles this utopian avian society with his usual deadpan humor and surreal drawing style. DeForge’s book tour for Birds of Maine will hit Pilsen Community Books on October 14. The prolific comics artist and former Adventure Time illustrator began serializing these comics on social media in April 2020. In August 2022, publisher Drawn & Quarterly dropped the book.
In Birds of Maine’s moon setting, the birds have abandoned Earth traditions as arcane and laughable. Instead, they have roosted into an easy socialist existence. The systemic conflicts of capitalism may be gone, but there is still room for plenty of plot. A kiwi bird and a penguin attempt a long-distance love. An angsty group of teen birds start a punk band. A young cardinal strikes up an email correspondence with a human stuck on Earth—throwing into obvious light how much bird society reflects and refracts our modern dilemmas.
Birds of Maine by Michael DeForgeDrawn & Quarterly, hardcover, $34.95, 464 pp., drawnandquarterly.com
We talked to DeForge about utopias and dystopias, alternate technological histories, and what goes into building a fully realized fantasy world.
Megan Kirby: How did you start building the world of Birds of Maine?
Michael DeForge: I’d been thinking about ideas around technology for awhile. One of the things that happens when you read the history of computing or the Internet—and you see how both of those things have wound up fairly dystopian—is that you end up seeing this alternate history of technology where things didn’t have to develop according to the whims of capitalism or imperialism. The infrastructure of the Internet is built on those two things, but you can imagine this alternate history of something like the Internet that is built to be as egalitarian and liberatory as some of its biggest cheerleaders were saying at the dawn of the Internet. I wanted to write about technology that was built on a different infrastructure.
At the same time, I remember reading about the ways people have talked about mushroom computing, within fungal networks. I thought that was a really good starting point to build a whole world out of. A lot of the world-building was just me trying to figure out how they developed this technology. They’re not built for humans, they’re built for bird use—and mushroom use. I wanted the mushrooms and bugs to be as involved in the creation of the Internet as the bird. I also wanted it to seem alien and foreign to us. I spent a lot of time thinking about mushrooms, which was a pleasant way to pass the time.
Credit: Courtesy Drawn & Quarterly
Was there a moment you realized this was the project you wanted to pursue?
There was always this issue of Kamandi by Jack Kirby. It’s a future where there’s not very many humans, a Planet of the Apes-style future where animals all have their own kingdoms and technologies and stuff. There’s one where he goes underwater, and he sees dolphin technology. Because they’re dolphins and they’re all underwater, there’s no up or down to them. It’s just a series of connected boxes with little buttons that are pulls, because the only way that dolphins would be able to interact with technology is with their noses. As a kid I thought that was really funny, and as an adult I kept thinking about that. I reread the issue as an adult, alongside an Ursula Le Guin story where in the future people are deciphering ant poetry that’s been written on germinated seeds. When I put those two things together, that was the spark to really delve into thinking about bird communication, bird technology, and what that might look like.
The book really explores capitalism and imperialism through their absence. How did you form the tenets of bird society?
One of the rules I set out at the beginning was that I knew there was going to be conflict and friction within the book, but it needed to all remain interpersonal. I didn’t want there to be scarcity or some war. I wanted to depict a world where there was still conflict and problems and tragedy and grief and despair, but they’ve built a utopia that is sturdy enough to hold all of those things. I didn’t want it to be so rooted in humans and our present culture. I didn’t ever want the birds to explain exactly what type of communist they are.
You’ve explored dystopias and the idea of chasing paradise before. What draws you towards those themes?
I’m interested in the way people try to build up structures for themselves and then fail. There’s been so many utopian projects, especially in contemporary western history. And I think there is a tendency to write off their failures, or if they dissolve, to write off the whole experiment like a failure without maybe properly looking at the things that were successes. Some of the reasons that these attempts maybe collapse is that it’s very hard to build something new within an infrastructure that is already there, and sucks, and is working so hard to destroy you.
Because I do focus so much on our present calamity, I wonder how—not that art needs to be productive, but it can feel a little unproductive to always be fixated on disaster. Because we live in disaster. I don’t always think it’s that helpful for art to explain the disasters. Everyone knows everything sucks. No matter where someone is on the political spectrum, I think most people feel that deeply. I find it more a challenge to write about alternatives than to just write about how things suck.
I loved the way the book explores the Internet. Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship to the Internet as an artist?
It’s weird because I sometimes feel like I should be more grateful for the Internet. I grew up online, and I developed as an artist online. And career-wise, I’m quite reliant on something like Instagram or Twitter. But alongside all that, I’m of course extremely resentful that we are all beholden to these companies that do not really care about the artists using their platforms for their livelihoods. The whims of some company can change and then suddenly you’re out of work. It hits me less hard than if I was drawing more pornography or if I was involved in sex work. You can see these cases of all these people and their livelihoods just getting decimated by these choices.
A self-portrait by DeForge Credit: Michael DeForge
Are you working on anything right now?
I just started serializing a new comic on Twitter that is about a touring pop group. It’s going to be weekly. I’ve been reading a lot of pop memoirs. Maybe it’s because I haven’t traveled in the pandemic yet, so the idea of touring is interesting to me.
If you were a bird, what kind of bird would you be?
I think I’d be a kiwi . . . That’s been my answer for favorite bird, but I also feel like that’s a very niche bird. Not for everyone, that’s my type of bird.
Michael DeForge and musician and author Sadie Dupuis in conversation with musician and writer Jes SkolnikFri 10/14, 7 PM, Pilsen Community Books, 1102 W. 18th St., pilsencommunitybooks.com
Elaborate hologram displays. A satellite planet. A mysterious deity. On the surface, Lane Milburn’s rollicking sci-fi graphic novel Lure doesn’t have much to do with Chicago. But Milburn drew inspiration from his old neighborhood, his punk band, his friends, and his near-decade living in the city. Lure takes place on an alternate earth, orbited by…
An excerpt from DeForge’s Birds of Maine Credit: Courtesy Drawn & Quarterly
On the moon, there are no humans. The birds that populate the lunar planet don’t get caught up in ideas like weekends or “the economy.” They stay connected via a vast fungal network, and there is plenty of universal worm (there’s one big worm that they all eat) to keep everyone fed.
Michael DeForge’s latest graphic novel, Birds of Maine, chronicles this utopian avian society with his usual deadpan humor and surreal drawing style. DeForge’s book tour for Birds of Maine will hit Pilsen Community Books on October 14. The prolific comics artist and former Adventure Time illustrator began serializing these comics on social media in April 2020. In August 2022, publisher Drawn & Quarterly dropped the book.
In Birds of Maine’s moon setting, the birds have abandoned Earth traditions as arcane and laughable. Instead, they have roosted into an easy socialist existence. The systemic conflicts of capitalism may be gone, but there is still room for plenty of plot. A kiwi bird and a penguin attempt a long-distance love. An angsty group of teen birds start a punk band. A young cardinal strikes up an email correspondence with a human stuck on Earth—throwing into obvious light how much bird society reflects and refracts our modern dilemmas.
Birds of Maine by Michael DeForgeDrawn & Quarterly, hardcover, $34.95, 464 pp., drawnandquarterly.com
We talked to DeForge about utopias and dystopias, alternate technological histories, and what goes into building a fully realized fantasy world.
Megan Kirby: How did you start building the world of Birds of Maine?
Michael DeForge: I’d been thinking about ideas around technology for awhile. One of the things that happens when you read the history of computing or the Internet—and you see how both of those things have wound up fairly dystopian—is that you end up seeing this alternate history of technology where things didn’t have to develop according to the whims of capitalism or imperialism. The infrastructure of the Internet is built on those two things, but you can imagine this alternate history of something like the Internet that is built to be as egalitarian and liberatory as some of its biggest cheerleaders were saying at the dawn of the Internet. I wanted to write about technology that was built on a different infrastructure.
At the same time, I remember reading about the ways people have talked about mushroom computing, within fungal networks. I thought that was a really good starting point to build a whole world out of. A lot of the world-building was just me trying to figure out how they developed this technology. They’re not built for humans, they’re built for bird use—and mushroom use. I wanted the mushrooms and bugs to be as involved in the creation of the Internet as the bird. I also wanted it to seem alien and foreign to us. I spent a lot of time thinking about mushrooms, which was a pleasant way to pass the time.
Credit: Courtesy Drawn & Quarterly
Was there a moment you realized this was the project you wanted to pursue?
There was always this issue of Kamandi by Jack Kirby. It’s a future where there’s not very many humans, a Planet of the Apes-style future where animals all have their own kingdoms and technologies and stuff. There’s one where he goes underwater, and he sees dolphin technology. Because they’re dolphins and they’re all underwater, there’s no up or down to them. It’s just a series of connected boxes with little buttons that are pulls, because the only way that dolphins would be able to interact with technology is with their noses. As a kid I thought that was really funny, and as an adult I kept thinking about that. I reread the issue as an adult, alongside an Ursula Le Guin story where in the future people are deciphering ant poetry that’s been written on germinated seeds. When I put those two things together, that was the spark to really delve into thinking about bird communication, bird technology, and what that might look like.
The book really explores capitalism and imperialism through their absence. How did you form the tenets of bird society?
One of the rules I set out at the beginning was that I knew there was going to be conflict and friction within the book, but it needed to all remain interpersonal. I didn’t want there to be scarcity or some war. I wanted to depict a world where there was still conflict and problems and tragedy and grief and despair, but they’ve built a utopia that is sturdy enough to hold all of those things. I didn’t want it to be so rooted in humans and our present culture. I didn’t ever want the birds to explain exactly what type of communist they are.
You’ve explored dystopias and the idea of chasing paradise before. What draws you towards those themes?
I’m interested in the way people try to build up structures for themselves and then fail. There’s been so many utopian projects, especially in contemporary western history. And I think there is a tendency to write off their failures, or if they dissolve, to write off the whole experiment like a failure without maybe properly looking at the things that were successes. Some of the reasons that these attempts maybe collapse is that it’s very hard to build something new within an infrastructure that is already there, and sucks, and is working so hard to destroy you.
Because I do focus so much on our present calamity, I wonder how—not that art needs to be productive, but it can feel a little unproductive to always be fixated on disaster. Because we live in disaster. I don’t always think it’s that helpful for art to explain the disasters. Everyone knows everything sucks. No matter where someone is on the political spectrum, I think most people feel that deeply. I find it more a challenge to write about alternatives than to just write about how things suck.
I loved the way the book explores the Internet. Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship to the Internet as an artist?
It’s weird because I sometimes feel like I should be more grateful for the Internet. I grew up online, and I developed as an artist online. And career-wise, I’m quite reliant on something like Instagram or Twitter. But alongside all that, I’m of course extremely resentful that we are all beholden to these companies that do not really care about the artists using their platforms for their livelihoods. The whims of some company can change and then suddenly you’re out of work. It hits me less hard than if I was drawing more pornography or if I was involved in sex work. You can see these cases of all these people and their livelihoods just getting decimated by these choices.
A self-portrait by DeForge Credit: Michael DeForge
Are you working on anything right now?
I just started serializing a new comic on Twitter that is about a touring pop group. It’s going to be weekly. I’ve been reading a lot of pop memoirs. Maybe it’s because I haven’t traveled in the pandemic yet, so the idea of touring is interesting to me.
If you were a bird, what kind of bird would you be?
I think I’d be a kiwi . . . That’s been my answer for favorite bird, but I also feel like that’s a very niche bird. Not for everyone, that’s my type of bird.
Michael DeForge and musician and author Sadie Dupuis in conversation with musician and writer Jes SkolnikFri 10/14, 7 PM, Pilsen Community Books, 1102 W. 18th St., pilsencommunitybooks.com
Elaborate hologram displays. A satellite planet. A mysterious deity. On the surface, Lane Milburn’s rollicking sci-fi graphic novel Lure doesn’t have much to do with Chicago. But Milburn drew inspiration from his old neighborhood, his punk band, his friends, and his near-decade living in the city. Lure takes place on an alternate earth, orbited by…
Fast-paced and uproariously funny, “Clyde’s” is a spicy feast for the senses.
Lynn Nottage’s latest work, now playing at the Goodman Theatre, follows a modest yet popular truck-stop diner run by a colorful staff of formerly incarcerated folks and their practically demonic boss and restaurant namesake, Clyde.
As Clyde, understudy Danielle Davis (De’Adre Aziza who was originally cast in the role is out for an indeterminate length of time) is wickedly delightful as the hell-on-wheels employer who runs her kitchen like a warden at the penitentiary from which they’ve all been freed. Davis is a hoot to watch, gleefully striding from one end of the stage to the other, chewing up the scenery (and her employee’s backsides) with impunity.
‘Clyde’s’
For the formerly incarcerated, the reach of the prison walls extend far beyond one’s release date, a theme echoed in every element of the story. It’s incredibly difficult for people with a record to find meaningful employment, which makes a crappy job slinging sandwiches a welcome lifeline.
One of the kitchen staff, the mouthy and tender-hearted Letitia (played by a dazzlingly charismatic and funny Nedra Snipes) says “You have to fight to protect your freedom” — haunted by how easy it would be to backslide and end up in jail once again. After all, there are parole officers to answer to, bills to pay, children to feed, sobriety to maintain — and gainful employment underpins the success of all of those goals. These are the sobering realities of life after incarceration and recidivism is a more likely outcome than success. Unfortunately, Clyde is the kind of boss that any employee would be justified in walking out on mid-shift, placing her desperate staff in one hot pickle.
While many might approach a story of ex-convicts searching for redemption with the traditional recipe of sorrow, angst and grit, Nottage serves up a heaping helping of comedy. The engine of this story is hope, not heartbreak. Director Katie Whoriskey’s comedic timing is impeccable, consistently delivering back-to-back belly laughs throughout the play.
Armed with a sandwich and a dream, Letitia and her co-workers strive to stay on the straight and narrow, but begin to realize that the soul needs food just as much as the flesh, and yearn for more. Working alongside Letitia is the sprightly hilarious Rena Salazar playing Rafael, an amorous sous chef successfully turning his life around, and a casually comedic Garett Young plays Jason, a young man whose ink guarantees a life sentence despite his release.
Danielle Davis stars as Clyde alongside Kevin Kenerly as Montrellous in “Clyde’s,” now playing at the Goodman Theatre.
Liz Lauren
Leading up this merry band of dreamers is the sandwich guru Montrellous, a mysterious older chef with a firm grasp of the gourmet (which may lend the play comparison to the hit TV show The Bear) and a dream of broadening their customer base from truckers to hipsters. Serving as a father figure and Hood Guru to the impetuous youngsters, he shares the gospel of the mindfulness of the mundane – wrestling with inner demons by finding peace in daily tasks like preparing a sandwich. Lighting Designer Christopher Akerlind’s considerable talents are on display, elevating their indulgent moments of culinary creativity to the sublime.
Just as the staff begins to flourish, Clyde spins in like a hurricane, crushing their dreams like so many eggs. A cantilever to the optimism of Montrellous, Clyde serves a bitter tablespoon of reality, stating “This world is mean, i’m just in it.” As Clyde wreaks havoc on the lives of her staff wearing her truly outstanding nightclub-meets-prison warden wardrobe choices (truly immaculate work by costume designer Jennifer Moeller), we learn that the entire world is Clyde’s prison, and for better or for worse, her tiny kitchen is the only place where she can guarantee full control. This unrepentant and deeply flawed female character will make you feel guilty for delighting in the hilarious terror she causes her poor employees.
Of course, any show with a pyrotechnician on staff is guaranteed to be a great time (excellent work by Black Circle Creative) and this play is totally lit. Nottage’s scrumptious descriptions of mouth-watering sandwiches will make your taste buds salivate and your stomach grumble in anticipation. Some entrepreneurial food truck owner would be wise to park across the street as the show lets out!
The characters that Nottage creates are vivid and just as enticing as the food, making you want to follow their stories when they leave the stage. This show is raucous, bawdy and full of surprises. If there’s any downside, it’s that the eminently delicious “Clyde’s” will leave you ravenously hungry for more!
Riot Fest is now over, but the debate over whether it should stay in Douglass Park or find another home remains.
Since 2015, when the three-day music festival was moved to its new location from Humboldt Park, many residents and community groups have spoken out against it, saying it restricts access to a public park, clogs traffic and brings parking problems. Others, like members of the Mt. Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church, welcome the fest and attendees, and say those demonstrators seeking to oust the fest are missing the big picture.
“I don’t think they see the totality of it. I don’t think they see the opportunities that it brings to the community,” said Shameka Barnes, administrative assistant at Mt. Bethlehem.
The church, located at 2625 W. Ogden Avenue, about two blocks from the festival gates, offers a large spread of food for sale that has become a favorite of many festivalgoers since Riot Fest arrived at Douglass Park.
Vendors set up shop along the streets leading to Riot Fest.
Bob Chiarito/For the Sun-Times
“I’ve been coming here before and after [Riot Fest] for the last three years,” Elisa Shumer, a 26-year-old Bridgeport resident, said Sunday shortly after the last set of the night. “It’s a ton better than the food inside and a lot cheaper, too.”
Graduate student Casey Long, a 30-year-old from Ithaca, New York, agreed with Shumer, saying the food from the church hit the spot.
“It’s been a long day and these tacos are awesome. I’m so glad I spotted this place,” Long said.
Along with Long and Shumer, several dozen people waiting in line were looking over items in Sterno trays, which included tacos; nachos with chicken, beef or buffalo chicken; Italian sausage; mostaccioli; fried chicken wings and legs; and, for dessert, coconut-lime lemonade cups or snowballs. Items ranged from $3 for chicken legs to $8 for Italian sausage with bell peppers, chips and water or pop, to $15 for three “fully loaded” tacos.
Shameka Barnes (second from right) and other volunteers from Mt. Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church prepare food to sell outside Riot Fest in Douglass Park on Sunday.
Bob Chiarito/For the Sun-Times
While the church could not provide numbers on how many customers it serves every year or how much money it raises from the sales, Barnes did note that everything is made inside the church’s kitchen, which is licensed by the city. She added that “everything is made with love” and the money earned allows the church to put on picnics for the community, provide programming for residents and church members six days a week, and stage events like back-to-school giveaways for children in the area.
Barnes also said church members have never had a problem with anyone attending Riot Fest and would hate to see it leave Douglass Park, and not just because of the money they raise.
“We love it. It’s exciting for us. I don’t want to see it go,” Barnes said. “We get to interact with people from different places who come back every year. We’ve had people from the UK and from Australia. It’s been awesome.”
She also said the eight to 10 church volunteers who work the stand also provide a safe space for those who may have had too much to drink inside the fest or need help getting home because they’ve lost their phone.
“We don’t judge; they are there for a good time,” Barnes said. “If someone stumbles, we catch them and make sure they are OK. We’ll ask if they need a ride because some don’t know how to use Uber or they lost their phone or their battery is dead.”
A few blocks from Mt. Bethlehem, vendor Raheema Lewis brought a tent, tables, barbecue and other supplies in a U-Haul truck to the park near the northwest corner of Sacramento and Ogden Avenues and was selling hotdogs and cheeseburgers. A former restaurant worker, Lewis offered that on a good festival day she could pull in as much as $2,000 — money she’s saving to open her own restaurant.
Barnes said some people in the neighborhood have exaggerated how long the park is shut down to the public.
As part of its ongoing and in some cases year-round mission to help make the neighborhood proud of the festival, Riot Fest each year offers free tickets to residents within a four-block area of the festival grounds, a community job fair that employs nearby residents to work in various capacities over the course of the festival, and has since 2010 featured Chicago Coalition for the Homeless as its charity partner.
As for complaints about traffic and parking problems from some residents, Barnes had some helpful hints.
“There are so many routes you can drive. You have California. You have Western. You have Cermak and Ogden, so there are a lot of different options,” she said. “Some people just like to complain.”
San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan is facing backlash for his play calling in wake of starting quarterback Trey Lance’s broken ankle. 49ers fans took to Twitter to express their frustration over Lance’s usage in the running game is what led him to have the unfortunate season-ending injury. The 49ers are no stranger to season-ending injuries for their team. Pro Bowl Tight End George Kittle has yet to play this season and the revolving door at the running back position has been a prime example of this, as well.
Longtime 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo will once again lead San Francisco for the remainder of the season. Shanahan is 44-45 in his tenure as 49ers head coach, with a 4-2 record in the postseason, he was voted 2016 AP NFL assistant coach of the year before joining the 49ers and has taken the team to two NFC title games and one super bowl. Shanahan was only three points from taking the team two its second in four years in the 49ers’ 20-17 loss to the eventual Super Bowl Champion LA Rams.
Not an Overreaction:The Bills are the best team in the NFL.
A week after crushing the defending Super Bowl Champion Rams, the Bills dismantled the Tennessee Titans 41-7 in Monday night’s doubleheader. Pro bowlers Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs connected 12 times for 148 yards and a career-tying 3 scores for Diggs. Allen finished with four touchdowns and 317 yards The Bills’ defense was smothering for two-time NFL rushing champ Derrick Henry who managed just 25 yards on the night.
Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill was also suffocated by the Bills defense, managing only 117 yards and two picks. Tannehill was replaced in the third quarter by rookie Malik Willis who could do little against the Bills. Buffalo looks poised to make a deep run in the playoffs, with their explosive offense and stifling defense it is no overreaction to say the Bills have all the makings of a Super Bowl favorite.
Overreaction: The Chargers are cursed to never win the West.
With their star quarterback Justin Herbert injured and veteran wide receiver Keenan Allen also on the mend. The Los Angeles Chargers are off to a debilitating, but not unfamiliar start to the season. Even as the “San Diego” Chargers, the franchise has had its history with injuries keeping them short of contention. The Chargers were picked by many to finally supplant Kansas City as the division favorite and even a chance at the Super Bowl. During the Chargers’ 27-24 loss in Kansas City, Justin Herbert was in visible pain while finishing the game.
Herbert has been diagnosed with “fractured rib cartilage” and is considered “day to day” Head Coach Brandon Staley said he could be back to practice this week. Los Angeles hasn’t won the division since 2009 and may have to wait another year to do so. The Chargers may have to turn to NFL veteran-journeyman Chase Daniel to lead the team on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Not an Overreaction: The Dolphins have the best Wide Receivers in the NFL
Tua Tagovailoa quieted his haters after Sunday’s dramatic shootout in Baltimore. Tagovailoa finished the day 36/50 with 469 yards passing, six touchdowns, and two interceptions. The interceptions came in first and helped add to the Dolphin’s deficit of 28-7 at the half. The Dolphins trailed by 21 with just 13 minutes remaining in the game. Tagovailoa threw for four touchdowns in the final quarter of play and threw the game-winning touchdown to Jaylen Waddle with fourteen seconds remaining.
The Dolphins had 233 yards of offense in the fourth quarter, much of which was amassed by their track star wideouts. Tyreek Hill and Waddle combined for 22 catches 361 yards and four touchdowns. The duo will give NFL defensive coordinators nightmares for weeks to come and maybe change the narrative surrounding Tagovailoa.
It’s only Week 3, but one early NFL trend can’t be ignored as it relates to the Bears’ offensive issues — wide receivers matter.
While the Bears are dead last in the NFL with 153 passing yards through two games, the Dolphins, Commanders and Jets among others have parlayed recently acquired receivers into an early giant leap in their passing game.
The Dolphins, with trade-acquisition Tyreek Hill (19 catches, 284 yards, two touchdowns) added to 2021 first-round pick Jaylen Waddle (15-240, three touchdowns), have jumped from 17th in passing yards in 2021 to first in the early going.
The Commanders, with 2022 first-round draft pick Jahan Dotson (7-99, three touchdowns) have jumped from 21st to second.
The Jets, with 2022 first-round draft pick Garrett Wilson (12-154, two touchdowns) have jumped from 20th to third.
The Eagles, who acquired A.J. Brown (15-224) in a trade with the Titans, have jumped from 25th to seventh.
Even over-paying for a quality wide receiver has been worth it so far. The Jaguars were mocked for signing Christian Kirk to a four-year, $72 million contract in free agency. But he’s already paying off. Kirk has 12 receptions for 195 yards and two touchdowns as the Jaguars have improved from 22nd to 12th in the NFL in passing.
The young quarterbacks in that group have benefitted –the Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa (from a 90.1 passer rating last year to 116.5); the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts (87.2 to 97.1) and the Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence (71.9 to 96.4). The Bears’ Justin Fields, meanwhile, has dropped from 73.2 last year to 69.2 through the first two games.
That doesn’t mean Bears general manager Ryan Poles was wrong to prioritize defense in the draft and free agency in 2022. He’s surely eyeing a big splurge on offensive weapons with better draft capital and a ton of salary cap space in 2023. But if Fields continues to struggle, it’ll be a tough sell for Poles to move on from Fields without having given him the weapons that other developing quarterbacks have benefitted from. Because it clearly makes a difference.
2. How bad is it? The Bears’ 153 passing yards not only are last in the NFL (even the 31st-ranked Giants have more than twice as many yards), it’s the fewest passing yards through two games since 2005 (the fourth-year Texans with 133), and the fifth fewest in the NFL after two games in the last 40 seasons.
Two of the four teams ahead of them on that list were expansion teams — the 1999 Browns (121 yards) and the 2002 Texans (152). The other team was the 1999 Eagles in Andy Reid’s first season (133 yards), when he was starting Doug Pederson but playing rookie Donovan McNabb, who became the starter in Week 10. And the rest is history.
3a. Not-So-Fun-Fact: Exactly 33% of the Bears’ passing yards have come on one play — Fields’ 51-yard pass to Dante Pettis off a Fields scramble (and 49ers defensive breakdown) in Week 1.
3b. Not-So-Fun-Fact II: The Chiefs had more passing yards with 10:00 left in the second quarter of their opener against the Cardinals (159) than the Bears have in two games.
4a. Reality Check: After inflated hope following the opening victory over the 49ers on a sloppy track at Soldier Field in Week 1, the Bears are who we thought they were — a rebuilding team with a long way to go, especially on offense. That said, they’re 1-1 against two likely playoff teams, which is better than most experts predicted — for whatever that’s worth.
The next four games — the Texans, Giants, Vikings and Commanders — should paint a pretty clear picture of what kind of rebuilding year this will be.
4b. Grasping At Straws Dept.: The halftime-adjustment angle was about the only Week 1 positive left standing after the Packers game. After getting outscored 24-7 in the first half against the Packers, the Bears played to a 3-3 standoff in the second half.
(The Bears had been outscored by the Packers in the second half in 11 of their previous 12 games. And when the Bears outscored the Packers 15-14 in 2020, they scored two garbage touchdowns after trailing 41-10 at Lambeau.)
For what it’s worth, in two games this season, the Bears have been outscored 31-7 in the first half, and outscored the 49ers/Packers 22-6 in the second half.
5. Keeping an NFL rebuilding year in perspective is much more difficult in the modern era of Twitter, podcasts, social media in general and sports radio. Not everything is a defining moment. It’s Week 3.
6. The Bears’ 11 passes against the Packers are tied for the fourth fewest in a loss in the last 40 years.
The only teams to throw fewer passes in that span are the Cardinals against the Bills in 1990 (10, with quarterback Timm Rosenbach), the Broncos against the Saints in 2020 (nine, with Kendall Hinton — a practice squad wide receiver called up as an emergency quarterback during a COVID-19 outbreak), and the Texans against the Colts in 2005 (nine, with David Carr).
7.When Poles was asked prior to the season about the criticism that he had not provided Fields with enough support, he pointed to Darnell Mooney (“Mooney is balling right now”), tight end Cole Kmet and third-round rookie wide receiver Velus Jones as playmakers he was excited about.
In the first two games, Mooney has two receptions for four yards; Kmet has yet to catch a pass; and Jones has not played because of a hamstring injury.
It’s early — and two games is certainly not defining. But it’s uncanny how the best-laid plans at Halas Hall rarely come to fruition easily.
8a. The Bears should have a Lovie Smith appreciation video when Lovie returns to Soldier Field on Sunday with the Texans — because the nine seasons since Lovie was fired have been decidedly less fulfilling than his nine seasons as the Bears’ head coach.
In Lovie’s nine seasons, the Bears were 81-63 (.563) with five winning seasons, three playoff appearances, three playoff victories, two NFC Championship Game appearances and one Super Bowl appearance.
In the nine full seasons since, the Bears were 61-84 (.421) with one winning season, two playoff appearances (one of them only because of the COVID-19 season), zero playoff victories, zero NFC Championship Game appearances and zero Super Bowl appearances.
8b. Lovie is 0-2 against the Bears. He lost 21-13 with the Buccaneers in 2014 at Soldier Field in the Jay Cutler-Josh McCown Showdown; and he lost 26-21 with the Buccaneers in 2015 at Raymond James Stadium.
9. Josh McCown Ex-Bears Player of the Week: Rams wide receiver Allen Robinson caught four passes for 53 yards, including a 1-yard touchdown, in a 31-27 victory over the Falcons. That matched Robinson’s season total of one touchdown with the Bears last season.
Three of Robinson’s catches came on third down, including a 29-yard reception on third-and-10 in the third quarter.
It was the sixth quarterback Robinson has caught a touchdown pass from in the NFL — Blake Bortles (22), Mitch Trubisky (12), Chase Daniel (two), Nick Foles (three), Andy Dalton (one) and Stafford.
10. Bear-ometer: 7-10 –vs. Texans (W); at NY Giants (L); at Vikings (L); vs. Commanders (W); at Patriots (L); at Cowboys (L); vs. Dolphins (L); vs. Lions (W); at Falcons (W); at NY Jets (W); vs. Packers (L); vs. Eagles (L); vs. Bills (L); at Lions (L); vs. Vikings (W).
Surveillance video released Tuesday shows two Chicago police officers opening fire from their unmarked car last July, a shooting that has resulted in criminal charges against them both.
The video is among materials and records released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability as it investigates the shooting that wounded two unarmed men in Pilsen on July 22.
The release comes four days after Sgt. Christopher Liakopoulos and Officer Ruben Reynoso were hit with felony charges, and just a day after a Cook County judge refused to block COPA from making the videos public.
The only video that captures the shooting shows the officers’ gray Ford Fusion reversing as a group of people linger on a sidewalk in the 1000 block of West 18th Street. Two from the group then walk into the street toward the car, and one of them, Miguel Medina, holds a hand up in the officers’ direction.
Medina is shot almost immediately and knocked to the ground. Reynoso and Liakopoulos then jump out of the car and begin firing toward someone out of frame — apparently a 17-year-old boy who prosecutors said ran off and started firing at the cops.
As Liakopoulos gives chase, Reynoso stays by the car while Medina lies on the street. Neither officer appears to administer aid.
One person appears to check on Medina, followed by a second who runs up as the two officers stand near him. The video ends shortly after three police SUVs and a firetruck arrive and a crowd gathers around Medina.
The video has no sound. But other videos that don’t capture the shooting include the sound of gunfire and the initial distress call broadcast over police radio.
“Hey, do you need medical?” one person is later heard saying as someone else cries out in the background. “Hey, do you need first aid?”
Medina, 23, was shot in the lower back and right leg, according to an incident report included in the release. An arrest report notes he was taken into custody for aggravated assault of an officer, but was eventually released because the evidence was insufficient.
Reached by phone last week, Medina said the officers “shot me for no reason. Once the video is released, it will show what happened.” Attorneys for Medina said they have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging false arrest and excessive force.
Because the 17-year-old is a minor, COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy said the agency wasn’t making public video that shows him. The officers’ attorneys unsuccessfully sought to block COPA from releasing anything, arguing that the disclosure would show only “half” of the incident.
The video is central to the case against the officers and allegedly runs counter to the narrative initially put forth by police brass.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown initially told reporters that a gunman “shot first.” But on Monday, he agreed with the state’s attorney’s office that video evidence disproved the early claim that “there was an initial exchange of gunfire.”
Liakopoulos, 43, and Reynoso, 42, both face up to 30 years in prison on charges of aggravated battery with a firearm, aggravated discharge of a firearm and official misconduct. They were released on bond Friday and have been stripped of their police powers.
At a news conference announcing the charges last Friday, State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said the video shows the officers lied when they claimed they shot back after first being fired upon.
In tactical response reports released Tuesday, both officers made that false claim. Both marked boxes showing that an “offender” fired the first shot. Liakopoulos also marked a box in his report indicating they were “ambushed [with] no warning.”
Assigned to the Major Accidents Unit, the officers were wearing plainclothes and were driving to a training course when they stopped to investigate a group of people that morning, Assistant State’s Attorney Alyssa Janicki said during their bail hearing. Neither was wearing a body-worn camera.
Medina and the teenager, a satchel across the front of his body, approached the officers, according to Janicki, who said Medina was holding a wine bottle and cellphone in one hand.
As Medina was standing at the passenger side of the squad car and showing his hands, Reynoso pointed a gun from the window, Janicki said. Liakopoulos also grabbed his gun, leaning across Reynoso as they both fired at Medina, leaving him seriously wounded.
The 17-year-old ran off, grabbed a gun from his bag and began firing at the officers, who returned fire, Janicki said.
A document released by COPA provides new details about an innocent bystander wounded during the exchange. The 36-year-old man said he was walking back from a gym with his friend on 18th Street when he saw three men on the other side of the street, one of them waving a bottle, before gunfire erupted.
As he and his friend ran away, he was shot in his leg and collapsed, the report states. Someone driving past offered to drive him to someone’s house. From there, his friend drove him and his wife to Rush University Medical Center.
When police sought to charge the teenager with attempted murder, Liakopoulos and Reynoso both claimed he shot first, Janicki said. But in a subsequent interview with the state’s attorney’s office, the officers said they didn’t know who fired first but claimed the young man pointed a gun at them before they shot at Medina.
Reynoso’s attorney, Brian Sexton, contended that during the exchange of gunfire, Reynoso was focused on the 17-year-old with the gun and never shot in the direction of Medina.
As for his client’s conflicting statements, Sexton argued that he misremembered the “traumatic, stressful event.” Once Reynoso was able to watch the video, Sexton said, he told COPA and the state’s attorney’s office he “just didn’t remember” the shooting.
Sexton said prosecutors had “dropped” charges against the boy, but Foxx said Friday the case was still under investigation.
Liakopoulos’ attorney, Tim Grace, asked the court to focus on whether the officers’ actions were “objectively reasonable.” Grace noted they were on-duty when they were “confronted by an armed assailant who points a gun at them and eventually fires at them.”
“We don’t use 20/20 hindsight, we don’t second-guess, we don’t slow down video like the state’s attorney’s office does,” Grace said.
He said he expected COPA to release only “half the video,” indicating the agency wouldn’t make public surveillance footage showing the 17-year-old firing a gun. He asked Judge Maryam Ahmad to stop the release, but she referred the request to a hearing before Judge Mary Marubio on Monday.
There, the attorneys warned the incomplete video could bias prospective jurors. While the video would show the officers opening fire, Sexton said, it wouldn’t show the teen “dropping into a two-point stance and firing at two police officers.”
Marubio, however, declined to keep the video under wraps.
While only three games determine a champion, the current format is seven games: Two semifinals, a title game and four marquee bowls. To convert a four-team playoff into a 12-team version requires four more games and about three more weeks.
The four-team model is already scheduled for 2024 and ’25 seasons, but conference commissioners who manage the CFP are working to flip the format for those years.
“There’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of pieces,” Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson said earlier this month after a meeting of the management committee in Dallas.
True, but the framework is there.
Expanding for the 2024 and ’25 seasons — and accessing an additional $450 million in revenue over those two years — largely hinges upon whether the semifinals and championship games can be pushed back from their existing dates, with venue availability, big-event accommodations and television windows all lined up.
“It’s the calendar,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said. “It’s when are we going to play these games?”
The NFL schedule will play a huge role in determining when games will be played in a 12-team format for both 2024 and ’25 and beyond.
A warning to college football fans: Be prepared playoff games on weeknights.
The four new first-round games to be played on campus will be played at least 12 days after the conference championship games, currently played the first weekend of December. This gives teams that play for their conference titles extra rest and keeps Army-Navy as the only major college football game on tap the second weekend of December.
The NFL steers clear of the first two Saturdays in December in deference to college football, but that’s it. Starting the third weekend of December, the CFP can expect the NFL to play multiple Saturday games through mid-January and the first two weekends of its playoffs.
The CFP will either relinquish scheduling games on Saturday or risk going head-to-head with the NFL. There are Thursday night NFL games streaming on Amazon to consider, too, and the NFL is basically unrivaled in drawing American viewers.
“It’s just such a ratings behemoth,” said Bob Thompson, former president of Fox Sports Network.
There have been 18 college football playoff semifinals. Five have drawn television audiences of more than 20 million viewers. The rest ranged from 15.7 million to 19.5 million.
Last year, ESPN’s NFL regular-season Monday Night Football games averaged 14.2 million viewers and NBC’s Sunday Night Football averaged 18.5 million.
Maybe the CFP can place a first-round game or two onto the third Saturday in December when NFL games would likely be carried by the NFL Network.
“I think if I’m a network, I’m saying, ‘If you’re going to mandate that we go up against an NFL game, I know that my rating is going to be down so I’m not going to bid as much,'” Thompson said.
But that’s a reality to be dealt with no matter when the CFP expands, not a reason to avoid early expansion.
For the 2024 and ’25 seasons, the CFP quarterfinals in a 12-team format would be played in the non-playoff New Year’s Six bowls already scheduled on and around Jan. 1.
This should be a relatively easy switch.
In fact, the existing bowl lineup for those two years provides some help toward the expansion effort. Neither the Rose nor Sugar bowls would have to be moved off their contractually bound Jan. 1 time slots. The other two games might need their dates changed, but only by a few days.
Here’s where things get potentially complicated. For example, in the 2024-25 season:
— The semifinals are scheduled to be played at the Cotton and Orange bowls on Saturday, Dec. 28. To remain semifinals in a 12-team format, those games would likely need to be played no earlier than Wednesday, Jan. 8.
The NFL schedule again squeezes what’s available to the CFP. The NFL’s wild card weekend would be Jan. 11-12, 2025. Ideally, the CFP would play its semifinals that weekend or Monday, Jan. 13 — but the NFL’s expanded wild-card round now has six games, including one Monday night.
— That would leave Thursday, Jan. 9, and Friday, Jan. 10, as the best dates for the CFP semifinals to be played in North Texas and South Florida, both in stadiums used by NFL teams.
— The championship game for that season was recently awarded to Atlanta and scheduled for Monday, Jan. 6. That would likely need to be bumped back two weeks, to Monday, Jan. 20.
Hosting the CFP championship also requires more than an available football stadium.
Hotel space is needed for teams, media and thousands of fans from out of town. Plus, the CFP schedules events in and around the host city leading up to the championship, trying to give it a Super Bowl feel.
“So you need to look at the convention center for Playoff Fan Central. Local parks for potential concert venues. What could media day look like? It’s a variety of different checks related to availability that would really determine the feasibility of it,” said Rob Higgins, executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission in Florida. Tampa hosted the 2017 CFP final.
Higgins said ideally major events such as a CFP championship are scheduled three to seven years out.
“However, a more compressed timeline could still be possible if hotels and facilities can be made available by the host,” he said.
The CFP management committee meets again next week near Chicago. On Wednesday, the 2024 semifinals will be exactly two years and three months away.
Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards has been fined $40,000 for using offensive and derogatory language on social media, the NBA announced on Tuesday.
Edwards made homophobic comments while observing a group of people standing on a sidewalk during a video posted to his Instagram story last week. The video has been deleted, and Edwards acknowledged that his actions were inappropriate, the league said in a press release.
He also issued an apology on his Twitter account last Sunday following the incident.
“What I said was immature, hurtful and disrespectful and I’m incredibly sorry,” Edwards wrote in a tweet. “It’s unacceptable for me to anyone to use that language in such a hurtful way, there’s no excuse for it, at all. I was raised better than that.”
The Timberwolves also expressed their disappointment with Edwards comments in a statement last week.
“We are disappointed in the language and actions Anthony Edwards displayed on social media,” the statement attributed to team president Tim Connelly said last Monday. “The Timberwolves are committed to being an inclusive and welcoming organization for all and apologize for the offense this has caused to so many.”
