South Side residents Peter Taylor and Anne Alt have been bicyclists their whole lives. But a lack of bike lanes in their neighborhoods limited the places they could go and made riding on the street unsafe.

“I rode a lot of places in the city in the ’80s when there were no bike lanes at all,” said Alt, 58. “People in cars were like, ‘What are you doing here?'”

On Wednesday, the two cyclists stood with Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) and Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Gia Biagi and others to announce the “biggest bike lane expansion in Chicago history.”

By the end of 2022, CDOT plans to spend $17 million to add 100 miles of new bike lanes around the city with a concerted effort on the South and West sides. The additions will bring the city’s total bike lane miles to nearly 400.

Th city plans to add 100 miles of bikeway improvements in 2021 and 2022.Chicago Department of Transportation

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people biking to work in Chicago has nearly doubled, according to CDOT, with bike shares like Divvy breaking daily ride records on three separate occasions this year.

In July, the city completed one protected bike lane in West Pullman. The lane stretches along 119th Street between Ashland Avenue and Halsted Street and connects the Coleman Elementary Academy to the Major Taylor Trail. The trail is named after the bicycle racer and civil rights pioneer Marshall “Major” Taylor, who died in Chicago in 1932.

“When you look here, you see an example of the equity that CDOT is starting to bring to the bike network in Chicago,” said Peter Taylor, 62. He added that there are food deserts around the South Side, and the new bike lane “connects three grocery stores and allows people in our neighborhood to get to the grocery store for essential services.”

Most bike lanes will share the roads with vehicles. By the end of 2022, 12 miles of dedicated bike lanes will be marked by paint, concrete curbing or plastic poles.

Biagi said it is an “incremental process” to decide what type of bike lane and what protection goes with it.

“One of the challenges is that not every neighborhood is ready for (bike lanes)” she said. “So we might put the bike sharrow down to say, “Cycling is appropriate here.'” Doing so, she added, “builds on making cycling that option that people want to use” and the need for bike lanes.

CDOT hopes to design and install additional miles of protected bike lanes in 2022 but would need to assess community outreach and engagement before making any decisions.

For Taylor and Alt, both board members for the Friends of the Major Taylor Trail, the extra miles of bike lanes are a step in the right direction, but they say there is “still a long way to go” to providing safe and accessible cycling options.

Cheyanne M. Daniels is a staff reporter for the Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.

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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — During the construction of Notre Dame Stadium in 1929, the Fighting Irish football team needed a temporary home venue — one close enough and grand enough to accommodate the program’s growing fan base.

They found it in Soldier Field, a then-new stadium 100 miles to the west on the shore of Lake Michigan. At the time, team and venue were young and relatively untested; Notre Dame’s sole national title at that point had been claimed in 1924, the same year Soldier Field opened.

On Saturday, the No. 12 Irish return to Soldier Field to play No. 18 Wisconsin. It marks Notre Dame’s 13th game in the venerable stadium — they currently hold a 10-0-2 record — with the most recent matchup coming against Miami in 2012.

Tim LeFevour, the general manager of Soldier Field, fondly recalled the fanfare of the 2012 game.

“It is like putting a bowl game on every time we are fortunate enough to have Notre Dame come to Chicago and play here,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like a regular game — it always feels special.”

The matchup is unique in another sense: With a win, coach Brian Kelly would move ahead of Knute Rockne to become the all-time wins leader in Notre Dame history. And he would do it in the stadium the Rockne-led Irish called home for that 1929 season — a stadium in the city where Rockne was raised before building Notre Dame into one of college football’s greatest programs.

This weekend’s game is part of Notre Dame’s Shamrock Series of games played at neutral venues. The Fighting Irish are 9-0 in those matchups but are a 6 1/2-point underdog in this one.

“The Shamrock games are important to them,” Kelly said of his players. “They see them a little bit differently, especially when you’re playing close to home in Chicago, they know the history there.”

Indeed, the close connections between Notre Dame athletics and the Windy City date back more than a century. The familiar “Chicago’s team” moniker for the Fighting Irish — irksome to some, beloved by others — has roots in the slew of Rockne-era ties.

In 1893, when Rockne was a child, his family moved from Norway to Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, where Rockne lived until enrolling at Notre Dame in 1910. Throughout Rockne’s coaching tenure, the Irish played at Soldier Field seven times.

Over the following decades, many young Chicago football players have taken the two-hour trip east to join the Irish. A smaller, steady stream of Notre Dame players have made the opposite trek to play for the Chicago Bears. Some, like Chris Zorich, did both. Zorich, a defensive tackle on Notre Dame’s 1988 national championship team, was raised on Chicago’s South Side and spent five years with the Bears.

Notre Dame is represented on the current Bears roster by Alex Bars, Sam Mustipher and Cole Kmet, a native of the Chicago suburb of Lake Barrington.

Twenty miles down the road from Lake Barrington is Lake Forest High School, home of Fighting Irish offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, as well as two current members of Notre Dame’s roster: Rylie Mills and Eddie Scheidler. When Mills signed in December 2019, Rees said the recruiting visit took him “around the corner” from his childhood home.

Rees was the backup quarterback to Everett Golson the last time Notre Dame played in the Bears’ home stadium. Nine years later, Rees is in his second season as the Irish offensive coordinator and will face the Badgers with an offense led by Wisconsin’s own former quarterback, Jack Coan.

On Saturday, Notre Dame’s 3-0 start and unbeaten Soldier Field legacy will be put to the test. Kelly will get his first chance to become the winningest coach in program history — in a city that’s been an integral part of it.

“Chicago is a great base for us and Notre Dame fans,” Kelly said. “So we’re excited about that opportunity and certainly the challenge of playing a very good Wisconsin team.”

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Of all the things the White Sox want to tighten up, clean up or straighten out after they clinch the AL Central Division – besides the celebration mess they’ll undoubtedly leave in the visitors clubhouse at Progressive Field in Cleveland – none looms larger than having the bullpen in tip-top shape for the postseason.

Games in October are won and lost in the late innings. The Sox front office, knowing this to be true, acquired All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel from the Cubs at the trade deadline to pair him with their own All-Star closer, Liam Hendriks, and form what looked like an unbeatable back-end bullpen tandem.

Kimbrel didn’t come cheaply. The Sox gave up second baseman Nick Madrigal and Codi Heuer to get him, but it looked like a master stroke of aggressiveness from a front office adding a big weapon to their World Series hunting arsenal.

But eight weeks later, Kimbrel is struggling to command his four-seam fastball and sharp curveball, seemingly missing on his glove side more than times than not, and often by plenty.

There are 11 games left and 14 days before Game 1 of the ALDS, likely against the Astros on Oct.7 in Houston, for Kimbrel and pitching coach Ethan Katz and assistant pitching coach Curt Hasler to figure it out.

They believe they are onto something.

“We’ve centered on a couple of simple things in his delivery that he continues to monitor,” said Hasler, who oversees the bullpen.

“There were some delivery things, how he wasn’t using his back leg. We looked at before-and-after video, and he saw right away and said, ‘That’s it.’ It’s not difficult.”

Pitchers have peaks and valleys, even Hall of Fame caliber guys like Kimbrel, who pitched to a 0.49 ERA with the Cubs this season. Since coming to the Sox, Kimbrel – primarily working the eighth inning in what is now becoming a more familiar role – has posted a 5.78 ERA, giving up more hits (17) and home runs (four) in 19 innings than he did in 36 2/3 innings on the North Side (13 hits, one homer).

“Sometimes you see guys kind of start the season off on fire, trend up and then kind of hit a plateau,” catcher Yasmani Grandal said, “and they start coming down and then all of sudden they’re like, oh they figured it out and they start trending up again.”

Any time now, Craig, is what the Sox front office must be thinking.

And those who would be getting the ball to Kimbrel are almost as vital to the Sox’ World Series hopes. Michael Kopech’s ERA has climbed from 1.52 on July 30 to 3.69 with a September ERA of 5.40, albeit with 16 strikeouts and two walks over 8 1/3 innings. He is trending better with one earned run allowed in his last five outings, however. And Ryan Tepera, another deadline acquisition from the Cubs, cut his finger at his apartment and hasn’t pitched since Sept. 10. He hopes to pitch in three games before the postseason.

Left-hander Aaron Bummer (3.86 ERA) has struck out 10, walked one and allowed one run over nine appearances in September, and lefty Garrett Crochet hasn’t allowed a run in seven appearances this month, allowing three hits and one walk. And right-hander Jose Ruiz (2.89 ERA) is riding a streak of 10 consecutive scoreless outings dating to Aug. 25, mostly in lower-leverage situations.

And then there’s Hendriks (2.77 ERA, 34 saves), the least of the Sox’ worries. The AL saves leader has a remarkable strikeouts to walks ratio of 103 to seven, and and looks to be rounding into playoff form with one run allowed in his last 14 appearances.

As everyone waits for Kimbrel, Hasler doesn’t seem worried.

“Number one, it’s not for lack of stuff,” Hasler said. “The stuff is coming out of his hand extremely well. The velocity is good, the sharpness, depth and late break of the breaking ball are good. He’s getting strikeouts.

“I have no doubt Craig will get it figured out and as the games get bigger he’ll step up even more. He’s a huge part of what we’re going to do. We’re going to hand the ball to Craig and Liam and absolutely be in real good shape.”

NOTE: The Sox and Tigers were rained out Wednesday, as were the Indians and Royals, leaving the Sox magic number to clinch the AL Central at 2. The Sox could clinch as soon as Thursday with doubleheader sweep of the Indians.

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NEW YORK — Melvin Van Peebles, the Chicago-born playwright, musician and movie director whose work ushered in the “Blaxploitation” wave of the 1970s and influenced filmmakers long after, has died. He was 89.

His family said in a statement that Van Peebles, father of the actor-director Mario Van Peebles, died Tuesday evening at his home in Manhattan.

“Dad knew that Black images matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth?” Mario Van Peebles said in a statement Wednesday. “We want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free. True liberation did not mean imitating the colonizer’s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.”

Sometimes called the “godfather of modern Black cinema,” the multitalented Van Peebles wrote numerous books and plays, and recorded several albums — playing multiple instruments and delivering rap-style lyrics. He later became a successful options trader on the stock market.

But he was best known for “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song!” one of the most influential movies of its time. The low-budget, art-house film, which he wrote, produced, directed, starred in and scored, was the frenzied, hyper-sexual and violent tale of a Black street hustler on the run from police after killing white officers who were beating a Black revolutionary.

With its hard-living, tough-talking depiction of life in the ghetto, underscored by a message of empowerment as told from a Black perspective, it set the tone for a genre that turned out dozens of films over the next few years and prompted a debate over whether Blacks were being recognized or exploited.

“All the films about Black people up to now have been told through the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon majority in their rhythms and speech and pace,” Van Peebles told Newsweek in 1971, the year of the film’s release.

“I could have called it “The Ballad of the Indomitable Sweetback.” But I wanted the core audience, the target audience, to know it’s for them,” he told The Associated Press in 2003. “So I said `Ba-ad Asssss,? like you really say it.”

Made for around $500,000 (including $50,000 provided by Bill Cosby), it grossed $14 million at the box office despite an X-rating, limited distribution and mixed critical reviews.

The New York Times, for example, accused Van Peebles of merchandizing injustice and called the film “an outrage.”

But in the wake of the its success, Hollywood realized an untapped audience and began churning out such box office hits as “Shaft” and “Superfly” that were also known for bringing in such top musicians as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gave and Isaac Hayes to work on the soundtracks.

Many of Hollywood’s versions were exaggerated crime dramas, replete with pimps and drug dealers, which drew heavy criticism in both the white and Black press.

“What Hollywood did — they suppressed the political message, added caricature — and Blaxploitation was born,” Van Peebles said in 2002. “The colored intelligentsia were not too happy about it.”

In fact, civil rights groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congress of Racial Equality coined the phrase “blaxploitation” and formed the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Among the genre’s 21st century fans was Quentin Tarantino, whose Oscar-nominated “Django Unchained” was openly influenced by Blaxploitation films and Spaghetti Westerns.

After his initial success, Van Peebles was bombarded with directing offers, but he chose to maintain his independence.

“I’ll only work with them on my terms,” he said. “I’ve whipped the man’s ass on his own turf. I’m number one at the box office — which is the way America measures things — and I did it on my own. Now they want me, but I’m in no hurry.”

Van Peebles then got involved on Broadway, writing and producing several plays and musicals like the Tony-nominated “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death” and “Don’t Play Us Cheap.” He later wrote the movie “Greased Lighting” starring Richard Pryor as Wendell Scott, the first black race car driver.

In the 1980s, Van Peebles turned to Wall Street and options trading. He wrote a financial self-help guide entitled “Bold Money: A New Way to Play the Options Market.”

Born Melvin Peebles in Chicago on Aug. 21, 1932, he would later add “Van” to his name. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1953 and joined the Air Force, serving as a navigator for three years.

After military service, he moved to Mexico and worked as a portrait painter, followed by a move to San Francisco, where he started writing short stories and making short films.

Van Peebles soon went to Hollywood, but he was only offered a job as a studio elevator operator. Disappointed, he moved to Holland to take graduate courses in astronomy while also studying at the Dutch National Theatre.

Eventually he gave up his studies and moved to Paris, where he learned he could join the French directors’ guild if he adapted his own work written in French. He quickly taught himself the language and wrote several novels.

One he made into a feature film. “La Permission/The Story of the Three Day Pass,” was the story of an affair between a black U.S. soldier and a French woman. It won the critic’s choice award at the San Francisco film festival in 1967, and gained Van Peebles Hollywood’s attention.

The following year, he was hired to direct and write the score for “Watermelon Man,” the tale of a white bigot (played by comic Godfey Cambridge in white face) who wakes up one day as a black man.

With money earned from the project, Van Peebles went to work on “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song!”

Peebles’ death came just days before the New York Film Festival is to celebrate him with a 50th anniversary of “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.” Next week, the Criterion Collection is to release the box set “Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films.” A revival of his play “Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death” is also planned to hit Broadway next year, with Mario Van Peebles serving as creative producer.

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Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be mostly cloudy with a high near 62 degrees and gusts as high as 35 mph. A lakeshore flood advisory is in effect until 10 a.m. tomorrow. Tonight will also be mostly cloudy and windy with a low around 51. Tomorrow will continue to be breezy and cloudy with a high near 62 and a 40% chance of showers.

Top story

Two Simeon High School students killed in shootings hours apart. ‘This is why it’s so important to have … outlets for young people’

A boy who had just celebrated his 15th birthday has died after he and a 14-year-old were shot in Hyde Park last night.

Kentrell McNeal was the second 15-year-old Simeon High School student killed in gun violence in the last 24 hours following the fatal shooting of Jamari Williams in a separate incident hours earlier near the South Side school.

McNeal was pronounced dead at 9:33 a.m. this morning.

Police said McNeal and the 14-year-old boy were attacked while sitting in a car around 6:30 p.m. in the 5200 block of South Lake Park Avenue.

The younger boy was struck in the leg and transported to Comer Children’s Hospital in critical condition, police said.

McNeal suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was taken to Provident Hospital, police said. He was transferred to Comer.

Yesterday evening, friends and family trickled in and out of the hospital, most on their phones notifying others of the shooting.

McNeal was part of the nonprofit youth group Good Kids Mad City, according to the group’s executive director Carlil Pittman.

“Lately I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Kentrell,” Pittman wrote on Twitter. “This is why it’s so important to have creative spaces and outlets for young people to be able to go to, because there’s nothing on the streets of Chicago for them already. RIP.”

Sophie Sherry and David Struett have the full story here.

More news you need

Classes were canceled today at Naperville North High School as police investigated a bomb threat emailed to the west suburban school earlier this morning, school officials said. Students and staff were evacuated to Naperville Central High School, where families were asked to pick up their students, School District 203 said.

Chicago’s Board of Education voted today to renew its agreement with the Chicago Police Department to the tune of $11.1 million. A committee of community groups that has worked to reform the school police program said it was pleased with the district’s progress.

CTU officials gathered today outside a West Side elementary school where more than half the student body is under quarantine and called for CPS leaders to enact enhanced pandemic safety measures. In an interview Monday with WTTW, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was “disappointed” with the rollout of CPS’ testing plan.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson was discharged today from the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab after receiving therapy there for Parkinson’s disease as he recovered from a bout of COVID-19. Jackson, 79, and his wife Jacqueline Jackson, 77, were hospitalized Aug. 21 after testing positive for the virus.

A former Chicago police sergeant with a history of misconduct allegations has been sentenced to two years probation for beating two men outside an Andersonville bar in 2018. Eric Elkins, 47, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of battery, and was sentenced to probation yesterday, court records show.

A bright one

Adopt-a-Beach: The meaning of the annual clean-ups via a visit to South Shore Beach

The South Shore Beach looked well-groomed last Saturday as heavy waves dunked the shore.

”A woman comes with her dog, gets the big stuff and throws that out,” said Catherine Mardikes, the executive vice president for the League of Women Voters’ South Side unit. ”But there is an amazing amount of trash in the sand, such as straws and glass.”

Mardikes and vice president Jane Ruby led the South Shore Adopt-a-Beach event.

Plastics are the crux of why the 30th year of the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Adopt-a-Beach events matter.

Tracy Stanciel combs the South Shore Beach last Saturday during an Adopt-a-Beach event.Dale Bowman/Sun-Times

Tracy Stanciel found plenty of plastic as she combed the beach methodically. Her footprints made long lines in the sand, two feet apart, back and forth.

About 15,000 volunteers around the Great Lakes collect thousands of pounds of trash at the events. Volunteers wear work or surgical gloves to collect litter in buckets or garbage bags. Besides detritus common to humans, corroded metal posts (from old-time industrial dumping), a golf ball and a shotgun wad could be seen.

Dale Bowman has more from the cleanup effort here.

From the press box

Your daily question ?

Happy first day of autumn! Where’s the best place to see peak fall foliage in the city?

Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Yesterday, we asked you: How do you feel about the recent trend of restaurants forgoing printed menus for QR codes? Here’s what some of you said…

“I don’t mind at all. Before the pandemic, we probably never thought about all the things we touch & how many people touched before us including menus plus I usually look up the menu before going out for a meal so it’s the same thing.” — Tami Terry

“I want to turn off my phone and relax when I go into a restaurant. Although this is probably a part of the future and even happening at a lot of places now, I don’t like it.” — Carole Kuhrt Brewer

“I think it’s a great idea and certainly more sanitary than printed menus. Also, online menus allow for easier updating and should, in the long run, save money for the restaurants.” — Nichole Vasser

“I will leave without ordering. I still use a flip phone. It’s paid for, and it works in emergencies.” — Christine Bock

Thanks for reading the Chicago Sun-Times Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.

Sign up here to get the Afternoon Edition in your inbox every day.

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The Blackhawks’ eventful offseason will give way Thursday to what seems likely to be an equally interesting training camp.

A crowded roster of 63 players — up significantly from the 41 who attended camp last year and 55 who were invited in 2019 — will take the ice at Fifth Third Arena for the first on-ice sessions.

Among them will be just six players — the rapidly dwindling crew of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome, Connor Murphy and Collin Delia — who have been on the Hawks more than two years.

The list of offseason additions joining the team for the first time — Marc-Andre Fleury, Seth and Caleb Jones, Jake McCabe, Tyler Johnson and Jujhar Khaira — alone equals that group in size, and exceeds it if recently signed first-rounders Lukas Reichel and Nolan Allan are included.

With so much turnover comes higher excitement, higher expectations and, of course, higher scrutiny. Indeed, the remade Hawks haven’t in years had this much talent — nor have they had so many questions to answer.

Even sticking strictly to hockey-related happenings, the list is long. Who will the new alternate captain be? How will Patrick Kane’s undisclosed nagging injury — leftover from late last season — affect him? Will any of the three guys coming off season-ending injuries — Kirby Dach with his wrist; Alex Nylander and McCabe with their knees — be affected?

How much will Jones and McCabe improve the defense? How will the new goalie tandem of Fleury and Kevin Lankinen operate? What will happen to seemingly cast-aside backups Malcolm Subban and Delia?

Can coach Jeremy Colliton lead a contender, not only a rebuilder? Can Colliton revive, and where will he put, Dylan Strome after last season’s disaster? What will general manager Stan Bowman do with Brett Connolly’s overpriced contract and Andrew Shaw’s injured reserve-bound contract?

Who among the arguably 18 viable forwards and nine viable defensemen will win NHL jobs? Can top prospects Reichel and Henrik Borgstrom force their way into the mix immediately? Will “sophomores” like Philipp Kurashev, Ian Mitchell and Wyatt Kalynuk be able to keep their spots?

Jonathan Toews’ status produces enough questions to necessitate its own section entirely. Will the captain be a full participant in camp? Will he be ready for the regular season opener? And if yes to both, will he immediately look like the familiar top-six center stalwart or need a lighter workload, at least at first?

Bowman offered little clarity on those Toews questions in a Tuesday zoom with season-ticket holders.

“You want to make sure…he’s feeling more like himself, and that certainly seems to be the case,” Bowman said. “But he went through a lot and he missed a lot of time. He’s been training very hard, hoping to be ready for the season. Let’s just see how it plays out. None of us know — Jonny doesn’t even know — how he’s going to feel come three weeks from now.

“If he’s just like he was three years ago, that’s awesome. If he’s not at that level, if he’s at a different level, then that’s OK, too. The best thing would be to try to not have expectations.”

Off the ice, as well, more questions continue to hang over the franchise. Are any Hawks among the estimated 10-15 NHL players not yet vaccinated? If so, how will the team handle that player’s inability to travel into Canada?

And when will the results of the investigation into the allegations of a 2010 sexual assault cover-up be released? Will Bowman, frequently named in the allegations, keep his job? What other institutional changes will the Hawks implement? What will come of the two still-pending lawsuits?

Training camp, hopefully, will provide a decent number of answers. But the Hawks will need to sort things out quickly: the Oct. 13 season opener in Colorado is less than three weeks away.

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NEW YORK — Owen Wilson, Kim Kardashian West, Rami Malek and Jason Sudeikis are lined up to host the first four episodes of “Saturday Night Live” this fall.

NBC announced Wednesday that Wilson, who is starring in the upcoming film “The French Dispatch,” will host the show for the first time to open its 47th season on Oct. 2. Kacey Musgraves will be the musical guest.

While NBC announced the lineup of hosts and musical guests for the first four episodes, “Saturday Night Live” still hasn’t revealed who will be the cast members this season.

Halsey is the musical guest on Oct. 9, when Kardashian West makes her debut as host. Malek will host on Oct. 16, with Young Thug as the musician.

Sudeikis was a cast member and writer on “SNL” from 2003 to 2013, and on Oct. 23 will host the show for the first time. The actor just won an Emmy as best actor for his starring role in “Ted Lasso.” The series, which Sudeikis also co-created, won the Emmy for best comedy.

Brandi Carlile, with a much-anticipated new album due out next week, will make her first appearance as musical guest on Sudeikis’ show.

“SNL” will be shown live on NBC from coast to coast, and also stream on the Peacock service.

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Matt Nagy 2021 is starting to feel like John Fox 2017.

That’s not good for anyone, not for Nagy or Fox or rookie quarterbacks or Bears fans or innocent bystanders or warm-blooded vertebrates.

Nagy, the current Bears head coach, is trying to figure out how to get the most out of rookie quarterback Justin Fields, whom the vast majority of fans and media desperately want in the starting lineup ahead of veteran Andy Dalton. They’ll get their wish Sunday when Fields starts in place of an injured Dalton against the Browns.

Fox, a former Bears head coach, was tasked four years ago with getting the most out of then-rookie quarterback Mitch Trubisky, whom the vast majority of fans and media desperately wanted in the starting lineup ahead of veteran Mike Glennon.

Fox couldn’t get much out of Trubisky in their one season together, which led the Bears to pluck Nagy from the Chiefs coaching staff. A new, offensive-minded head coach would solve everything!

Nagy couldn’t get much out of Trubisky in their three seasons together, and now it’s his job to get the most out of Fields. If he doesn’t, there’s a decent chance ownership will look for another head coach to solve everything. Unfortunately, history suggests that ownership wouldn’t know a football from a souffle.

The scary part is the possibility, remote as it seems now, that Fields will be led down the same, sad path that Trubisky was. Couldn’t happen? Two different quarterbacks, one more of a gamble coming out of college (Trubisky), the other more of a sure thing (Fields)?

The offense that Trubisky ran during Fox’s tenure was bland, basic and not at all tied to the quarterback’s ability to run.

The sample size with Fields is small (a little more than one half as the starter in two games), but already critics are saying that Nagy doesn’t know how to take advantage of the kid’s athleticism. Translation: uh-oh.

It’s going to be very difficult for Nagy to shake the label of quarterback millstone. Three things are at work here: 1) His “failure” with Trubisky, though Trubisky had a bigger hand in that lack of success; 2) Nagy hasn’t been good at game planning the past two seasons; and 3) Nagy will never be forgiven for getting in the way of massive public support for Fields as the starter. Where lots of people see themselves as visionaries when it comes to the rookie, Nagy can’t see the light, his detractors say.

So he’s fighting a losing battle, public relations-wise. He’ll either be the idiot who couldn’t recognize Fields’ greatness and wasted the first two games of the season with Dalton, or he’ll be the man whose play calling was an obstacle to Fields’ development. Or both.

Just as Fox was viewed as an idiot and an obstacle at the beginning of the Trubisky era.

Can Nagy somehow reshape this storyline? It’s going to be extremely difficult, like bending a prison-cell bar. People have such an emotional investment in the idea of Fields succeeding that anything short of success is going to be viewed as Nagy’s failure, not the kid’s.

Trubisky got a free pass his rookie season and so will Fields. Fox didn’t, nor will Nagy.

Nagy was supposed to correct Fox’s mistakes. He was the one who would unlock Trubisky’s talents, first by allowing the rookie to use his legs to make plays and then by molding him into a big-boy quarterback. None of it happened.

You would think that Nagy has learned his lesson. The best way for him to keep his job is to let Fields play as freely as possible. It’s not in most coaches’ DNA to give up on their beliefs. You can argue that Nagy, having come from a system that helped develop Patrick Mahomes into a superstar, would be the perfect choice to make Fields into a modern, Mahomes-like wrecker of defenses.

But we saw how stubborn he was with Trubisky, calling the same weak, ineffectual plays game after game and refusing to use the quarterback’s speed as a weapon. He was trying to hide Trubisky’s considerable warts, but it’s still frightening when that history is put in the context of what he might do with Fields.

Fox and Nagy. Nagy and Fox.

Yikes.

I questioned the wisdom of putting readers through such a depressing comparison, but then I remembered that nightmares naturally blend into other nightmares when it comes to the Bears. You’re used to it. It’s pretty much all you know.

I’d say you were born for this, but that would imply a lack of free will. Friends, nobody is making you buy those season tickets.

Before you get down on me for the Nagy-Fox comparison, just know that several readers have told me that Fields reminds them of Cade McNown.

Even I have my limits.

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NEW YORK — A prosecutor began closing arguments in the R. Kelly sex trafficking trial Wednesday by telling jurors that the government had delivered on its promises to prove that the R&B singer had for years commanded close associates to help him target, groom and exploit girls, boys, and young women for his own sexual gratification.

Six weeks of testimony from more than 45 witnesses and other evidence “showed he did just that,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes.

She said Kelly got away with sexually abusing his victims by surrounding himself with enablers he managed with an iron fist.

She told jurors the assistants, drivers, bodyguards and others Kelly employed comprised a criminal enterprise that resulted in the federal racketeering charges against him.

“The defendant set rules, lots of them, and he demanded complete obedience,” she said.

That meant “for many years what happened in the defendant’s world stayed in the defendant’s world,” she added. “But no longer.”

Then, Geddes began meticulously summarizing every key element of the evidence for jurors.

Before closings began, Kelly told U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly that he won’t take the witness stand, allowing him to avoid the risk of a potentially brutal cross-examination.

“You don’t want to testify, correct?” Donnelly asked the R&B singer. He responded: “Yes, ma’am.”

Lawyers had already said Kelly was unlikely to testify in his own behalf. Soon afterward, the defense completed presenting its case, setting the stage for closings to begin.

The defense presentation had relied on a handful of former Kelly employees and other associates who agreed to take the stand to try to discredit allegations that he sexually abused women, girls and boys during a 30-year musical career highlighted by the 1996 smash hit “I Believe I Can Fly.”

Most of the defense witnesses said they never saw Kelly abuse anyone. One even said Kelly was “chivalrous” to his girlfriends. Another admitted he owed Kelly for his break in music business and wanted to see him beat the charges.

By contrast, prosecutors have called dozens of witnesses since the trial began in federal court in Brooklyn on Aug. 18. They included several female and two male accusers to support allegations that Kelly used a cadre of managers, bodyguards and assistants to systematically recruit potential victims at his shows and at malls and fast-food restaurants where he spent time.

The accusers testified that once they were in Kelly’s web, he groomed them for unwanted sex and psychological torment — mostly when they were teenagers — in episodes dating to the 1990s. Their accounts were supported at least in part by other former Kelly employees, whose own testimony suggested they were essentially paid off to look the other way or enable the recording artist.

The 54-year-old defendant, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges. He’s also charged with that multiple violations of the Mann Act, which makes it illegal to transport anyone across state lines “for any immoral purpose.”

Kelly has vehemently denied the allegations, claiming that the accusers were groupies who wanted to take advantage of his fame and fortune until the #MeToo movement turned them against him.

Members of the media and the public haven’t actually seen the jailed Kelly in person during the trial. The judge has barred people not directly involved in the case from the courtroom in what she called a coronavirus precaution.

Meanwhile, a judge at a hearing Wednesday in Chicago said that a criminal case there against Kelly will remain on hold until the New York trial is over.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this report.

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