(Insert Mariachi band playing here!) Happy Cinco De Mayo! What is Cinco de Mayo anyway, besides a holiday to enjoy as many Margaritas as possible. Cinco de Mayo, (Spanish: “Fifth of May”) also called the Anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, is a holiday celebrated in parts of Mexico and the United States in honor of a military victory in 1862 over the French forces of Napoleon III and YES I had to google that (not ashamed). Celebrate this wonderful holiday this week at one of these amazing Mexican restaurants serving up Chicago’s best Cinco de Mayo margarita. 

Tuco and Blondie 

3358 N Southport Ave, Chicago, IL 60657

Tuco and Blondie is no stranger to margaritas. From 5-7 pm TODAY, you can shake your own margarita! They offer 6 different kinds with a variety of tequilas and mezcals that will surely satisfy your Cinco de Mayo craze. And the best part is you don’t have to just have a glass (it’s party time!) because they offer your favorite blends in pitchers too. Can I get a hell yeah?! Some of their staples include the Grande Margarita, served frozen with a Coronita garnish, and the Cadillac made with Don Julio Reposado, Cointreau, lime, agave, and Grand Mariner. 

Las Fuentes Restuarant 

2558 N Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60614

If you want an authentic Cinco de Mayo, then you’re in the right place. The owner of Las Fuentes is Originally from Guerrero, Mexico, and moved to Acapulco at 18. Following this journey, he moved to Chicago and opened this gem in February of 1982. The Cinco de Mayo celebration is not one to miss, lasting the entire week. With an extensive list of margaritas, there is something for everyone (21+ of course). And just like the previous restaurant, they offer glasses and pitchers. Fun fact! Las Fuentes has been serving margaritas for 40 years! Some staples include the Especial Margarita (Premium Jose Cuervo Reposado Tequila, Grand Marnier Orange Cognac, Fresh Lime Juice, and Agave Sweetener) and the Smoked Sombra Mezcal Margarita (Sombra Premium Mezcal, Jose Cuervo Reposado Tequila, Grand Marnier, Fresh Lime, and Agave Sweetener). 

Cesar’s Killer Margaritas – Clark

3166 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60657

Hoem of the (yep you guessed it) Killer Margaritas, Cesar’s needs to be on your Margarita crawl list! Their menu comes from generational family recipes dating back almost three decades. With over 16 Margarita flavors, Cesar’s is the place to be. If you like the traditional style Margaritas (no fanciness here), you’ll love this place. You can choose to have it over ice or frozen, add salt, chile salt, or sugar, and flavor. Highly recommend it if you’re new to the Margarita life! 

Mayan Palace Mexican Cuisine 

2721 N Halsted St, Chicago, IL 60614 

Mayan Palace is known for its Mayan Gold Margaritas. You can choose from 20 different tequilas and whether or not you want a glass, small pitcher, or a large pitcher. And if you’re looking to spice it up a little bit, they have Gold Margarita Hornitos, Skinny Margaritas (for those watching their figure), House Margaritas, and the Casamigos Mezcal Margarita. 

El Mariachi Restaurant

3420 N Broadway, Chicago, IL 60657

Tequila! With one other location in Chicago, El Mariachi is the place to be this Cinco de Mayo. Established in 1996, a father and his 2 sons opened a small 10-table restaurant in the East Lakeview community and gradually grew over the years by following a strict policy of only serving top quality, authentic dishes and the best margaritas in town. El Mariachi offers 13 kinds of Margaritas! My two favorites are the Premium Margarita, made from scratch with fresh lime juice, agave nectar, and their Ultra Premium Maestro Dobel Silver tequila, and the La Mamacita Margarita made with fresh hibiscus infused Gran Centenario Plata, fresh lime juice, agave nectar, ginger beer, all topped with hibiscus salt. 

Cinco de Mayo Margarita Featured Image Credit: Pexels

Be sure to check out our article on the best margarita spots on the West Side, as well.

The post 5 North Side Bars to Get the Perfect Cinco de Mayo Margarita appeared first on UrbanMatter.

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TAMPA, Fla. — It took just four batters at George Steinbrenner Field before a fan yelled “C’mon, blue!” toward home plate umpire Kaleb Devier after two consecutive close pitches were called balls.

Never mind that a computer was making the calls.

Didn’t matter on Tuesday night as the Tampa Tarpons took on the Dunedin Blue Jays. Because from Omaha to San Jose to the Jersey Shore, minor league baseball was back after a lost season, with fans, crazy promotions and even those robot umpires.

The Tarpons found themselves already in the dog days on opening day. They hosted the Dunedin Blue Jays on “Tail Waggin’ $2 Tuesday” where fans could bring their pooches to the park for two bucks.

New York Yankees vice president Vance Smith greeted and talked with fans as they entered the ballpark to see the Class A affiliate, calling it a homecoming after a minor league season wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Excited, but also hesitation,” Smith said. “We’re following some protocols, but we’re happy to have baseball back. That’s the one thing I’m excited about because it’s been 18 months since we’ve Tarpons baseball and minor league baseball.”

The scent of hot dogs — the kind with mustard, not the mutts — signaled a sense of normalcy. The masking and social distancing showed there was still a way to go.

Side attractions like Speed Pitch are gone and concessions are cashless but the games were back, finally.

“Super excited to be kicking off the minor league season,” Yankees senior director of player development Kevin Reese said. “I was one of many who were not too confident that this was going to happen in a timely fashion.”

There was a cheer when the PA announcer said, “Are you ready? Let’s welcome your 2021 Tampa Tarpons,” as the Yankees prospects took the field.

“It’s a lot of fun going out there and being able to watch these guys do what they love doing,” said Tampa manager David Adams, who played 43 games for the big league Yankees in 2013. “I think everyone will agree with that.”

But there are significant changes since Tampa and the minors last played in September 2019.

A reorganization by Major League Baseball saw the long-standing High-A Florida State League, in which Tampa played for a quarter-century, become the Low-A Southeast League. Some cities lost their teams entirely as the overall number of affiliates was cut from 160 to 120.

And after experiments in the independent Atlantic League and the Arizona Fall League, the Southeast League is the next proving ground for the automatic ball-strike system.

Devier got a roasting after Blue Jays batter Zach Britton took those two pitches for balls.

“I thought it was pretty good,” Tampa catcher Austin Wells said of the automatic system. “There were a couple calls here and there that me and the umpire thought were maybe strikes and balls, but it’s a good opportunity to work on different things.”

Right before the first pitch, Wells helped Devier adjust part of the system on the back of his belt.

“I was rigging it in our favor, actually,” Wells said with a laugh.

Wells, taken by the Yankees in the first round of the 2020 draft, hit a two-run homer and had an RBI double in the Tarpons’ 11-7 win that took almost four hours — long games, some things never change.

The Tarpons did fist-knocks after the victory and left the field with the PA playing Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”

“It was the best feeling in a long time being able to play under the lights again,” Wells said.

Dunedin is following the lead of its nomadic parent team. With the Toronto Blue Jays playing big league games at TD Ballpark in Dunedin through at least May, the D-Jays are scheduled to play their first 24 games away from home.

That follows the lost 2020 season and the 2019 campaign where they played home games in nearby Clearwater while the Dunedin ballpark underwent a major renovation project.

“The other uniqueness we’re dealing with this year is there is a shortened minor league season,” Blue Jays director of player development Gil Kim said. “There’s a lot of planning and processing that we can do a little bit differently this year.”

The Dunedin Blue Jays’ Twitter site summed things up when posting the lineup:

“First lineup graphic in almost two years! We are so back. Happy Opening Night.”

NOTE: The ball used in the game was the official minor league ball with the signature of former MILB president Pat O’Connor, who retired last year as MLB was working on redoing the minors.

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The Bears will begin selling single-game tickets for the 2021 regular-season May 12 at 8:30 p.m., following the release of the 2021 NFL schedule, the team announced Wednesday.

The availability of tickets will be subject to city, state and league coronavirus policies. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster through the Bears’ website, chicagobears.com/tickets.

A limited number or single-game, private suites for parties of 10 or more — “dynamically priced” — also will be available for the 2021 regular season.

Entry to Bears games and events at Soldier Field will be via mobile tickets only. Fans with tickets to games cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic will receive full refunds within 30 days.

The Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers will visit Soldier Field during the upcoming season. The Bears’ preseason schedule, which will include two home games, will be released with the regular-season schedule.

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Chicago Bears: Ryan Pace is being smart with the wide receiver room by Ryan Taylor

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Chicago Bears (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

The 2021 NFL Draft proved to be a franchise-altering event for the Chicago Bears, as they came away with one of the draft’s top quarterbacks in Ohio State’s Justin Fields.

General manager Ryan Pace could wait no longer to move up, and decided to strike a deal with the New York Giants at pick no. 11 — and that’s when history began to re-write itself.

No longer were the Bears going to be victim of back-of-the-league quarterback play. No longer were Bears fans going to be constantly harassed about their laughable history of having nothing more than mediocre quarterbacks.

The Fields pick is about to dramatically change things for the Bears.

Chicago Bears rookie quarterback Justin Fields is going to take the league by storm.

Fields is arguably the most highly-touted rookie quarterback in Bears history. Even though Mitchell Trubisky was the second overall pick four years ago, he had no where near the hype that Fields has had this year.

For some reason, Fields fell to the no. 11 pick. To this day, it’s still hard to believe any of the bogus excuses or reasoning behind his fall. But, he’s about to prove a few teams wrong — and in a big way.

The decision to keep Andy Dalton as the starter, for now, seems like a silly one. Head coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace made it abundantly clear that they are building around Fields with the way they went about the rest of the draft. It’s not tough to see him getting his shot a lot sooner rather than later.

When Fields does get the nod, he’s going to be off and running. In fact, as a rookie, he’s going to do some big things. How big? Fields is going to take this league by storm and accomplish five major feats in his first year as a Bear.

Next: Bold Prediction No. 1

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But experts also warn that a “substantial increase” in hospitalizations and deaths is possible if unvaccinated people do not follow basic precautions such as wearing a mask and keeping their distance from others.

NEW YORK — Teams of experts are projecting COVID-19’s toll on the U.S. will fall sharply by the end of July, according to research released by the government Wednesday.

But they also warn that a “substantial increase” in hospitalizations and deaths is possible if unvaccinated people do not follow basic precautions such as wearing a mask and keeping their distance from others.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paper included projections from six research groups. Their assignment was to predict the course of the U.S. epidemic between now and September under different scenarios, depending on how the vaccination drive proceeds and how people behave.

Mainly, it’s good news. Even under scenarios involving disappointing vaccination rates, COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are expected to drop dramatically by the end of July and continue to fall afterward.

The CDC is now reporting an average of about 350,000 new cases each week, 35,000 hospitalizations and over 4,000 deaths.

Under the most optimistic scenarios considered, by the end of July new weekly national cases could drop below 50,000, hospitalizations to fewer than 1,000, and deaths to between 200 and 300.

“We are not out of the woods yet, but we could be very close,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, while noting that variants of the coronavirus are a “wild card” that could set back progress.

The projections are probably in line with what many Americans were already expecting for this summer.

With COVID-19 deaths, hospitalizations and cases plummeting since January, many states and cities are already moving to ease or lift restrictions on restaurants, bars, theaters and other businesses and talking about getting back to something close to normal this summer.

New York’s subways will start running all night again this month, Las Vegas is bustling again after casino capacity limits were raised, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week suspended all restrictions put in place by local governments, though businesses may continue requiring people to wear masks and keep their distance, and many are still doing so.

Many people in Florida have resumed parties, graduations and recitals. Walt Disney World lets guests remove their masks for photographs.

“It does feel like life is returning to normal,” said 67-year-old Vicki Restivo of Miami, who after getting vaccinated resumed outings with her friends at restaurants and traveled to Egypt — and felt “very comfortable” about it.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday set a goal of delivering shots to 70% of U.S. adults by July Fourth. Such a goal, if met, would fit in with the best-case scenarios, said one of the study’s co-authors, CDC biologist Michael Johansson.

Under more pessimistic scenarios, with subpar vaccinations and declining use of masks and social distancing, weekly cases probably would still drop but could number in the hundreds of thousands, with tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths.

“Something I am asked often is when will the pandemic be over and when can we go back to normal. The reality is: It all depends on the actions we take now,” Walensky said.

All the projections trend down, illustrating the powerful effect of the vaccination campaign. But there’s a devastating difference between the more gently sloping declines in some scenarios and the more dramatic drops in others, said Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“Each of these differences are people’s lives,” said Kates, who is part of a Kaiser research team that has focused on COVID-19 and was not involved in the CDC study.

The U.S. death toll stands at more than 578,000. The CDC paper gives no overall estimate of how high the number of dead might go. But a closely watched projection from the University of Washington shows the curve largely flattening out in the coming months, with the toll reaching about 599,000 by Aug. 1.

More than 56% of the nation’s adults, or close to 146 million people, have received at one dose of vaccine, and almost 41% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

Johansson said the paper is intended not so much as a prediction of exactly what’s going to happen but as a way to understand how things might unfold if vaccination drives or other efforts stumble.

By September, assuming high vaccination rates and continuing use of prevention measures, the models indicate new cases could fall to just a few hundred per week and just tens of hospitalizations and deaths.

The paper also sketched out a worst-case scenario, in which cases could rise to 900,000 per week, hospitalizations to 50,000, and deaths to 10,000. That most likely would happen sometime this month, the projections said.

However, the paper’s projections are based on data available through late March, when the national picture was somewhat darker.

The CDC paper “is already looking a little outdated, because we’ve seen cases continue to go down, and hospitalizations go down, and deaths go down,” Kates said.

Nevertheless, Johansson warned: “We’re still in a tenuous position.”

There is variation from state to state in how well vaccination campaigns are going and how fast restrictions are being abandoned, and that will probably mean some states will suffer a higher toll from COVID-19 than others in the coming months, Kates said.

“If you take the foot off the gas,” she said, “you can really have some bad outcomes.”

The paper doesn’t look past September, and scientists cannot say for sure what the epidemic will look like next fall and winter because it’s not known how enduring vaccine protection will be or whether variants of the virus will prove to be a greater problem.

Like the flu, COVID-19 could increase as people move indoors in the cold weather.

“My hope is with enough people vaccinated we will be able to get to something that will resemble maybe a bad flu season,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University expert on disease dynamics who was not involved in the research. But “it’s not going to go away. It’s not going to be eradicated.”

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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami contributed to this report.

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Within days, a couple weeks at most, the cicadas of Brood X will emerge after 17 years underground. They’ll be in 15 states from Indiana to Georgia to New York; they’re coming out now in mass numbers in Tennessee and North Carolina.

COLUMBIA, Md. — Sifting through a shovel load of dirt in a suburban backyard, Michael Raupp and Paula Shrewsbury find their quarry: a cicada nymph.

And then another. And another. And four more.

In maybe a third of a square foot of dirt, the University of Maryland entomologists find at least seven cicadas — a rate just shy of a million per acre. A nearby yard yielded a rate closer to 1.5 million.

And there’s much more afoot. Trillions of the red-eyed black bugs are coming, scientists say.

Within days, a couple weeks at most, the cicadas of Brood X (the X is the Roman numeral for 10) will emerge after 17 years underground. There are many broods of periodic cicadas that appear on rigid schedules in different years, but this is one of the largest and most noticeable. They’ll be in 15 states from Indiana to Georgia to New York; they’re coming out now in mass numbers in Tennessee and North Carolina.

When the entire brood emerges, backyards can look like undulating waves, and the bug chorus is lawnmower loud.

The cicadas will mostly come out at dusk to try to avoid everything that wants to eat them, squiggling out of holes in the ground. They’ll try to climb up trees or anything vertical, including Raupp and Shrewsbury. Once off the ground, they shed their skins and try to survive that vulnerable stage before they become dinner to a host of critters including ants, birds, dogs, cats and Raupp.

It’s one of nature’s weirdest events, featuring sex, a race against death, evolution and what can sound like a bad science fiction movie soundtrack.

Some people may be repulsed. Psychiatrists are calling entomologists worrying about their patients, Shrewsbury said. But scientists say the arrival of Brood X is a sign that despite pollution, climate change and dramatic biodiversity loss, something is still right with nature. And it’s quite a show.

Raupp presents the narrative of cicada’s lifespan with all the verve of a Hollywood blockbuster:

“You’ve got a creature that spends 17 years in a COVID-like existence, isolated underground sucking on plant sap, right? In the 17th year these teenagers are going to come out of the earth by the billions if not trillions. They’re going to try to best everything on the planet that wants to eat them during this critical period of the nighttime when they’re just trying to grow up, they’re just trying to be adults, shed that skin, get their wings, go up into the treetops, escape their predators,” he says.

“Once in the treetops, hey, it’s all going to be about romance. It’s only the males that sing. It’s going to be a big boy band up there as the males try to woo those females, try to convince that special someone that she should be the mother of his nymphs. He’s going to perform, sing songs. If she likes it, she’s going to click her wings. They’re going to have some wild sex in the treetop.

“Then she’s going to move out to the small branches, lay their eggs. Then it’s all going to be over in a matter of weeks. They’re going to tumble down. They’re going to basically fertilize the very plants from which they were spawned. Six weeks later the tiny nymphs are going to tumble 80 feet from the treetops, bounce twice, burrow down into the soil, go back underground for another 17 years.”

“This,” Raupp says, “is one of the craziest life cycles of any creature on the planet.”

America is the only place in the world that has periodic cicadas that stay underground for either 13 or 17 years, says entomologist John Cooley of the University of Connecticut.

The bugs only emerge in large numbers when the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees. That’s happening earlier in the calendar in recent years because of climate change, says entomologist Gene Kritsky. Before 1950 they used to emerge at the end of May; now they’re coming out weeks earlier.

Though there have been some early bugs In Maryland and Ohio, soil temperatures have been in the low 60s. So Raupp and other scientists believe the big emergence is days away — a week or two, max.

Cicadas who come out early don’t survive. They’re quickly eaten by predators. Cicadas evolved a key survival technique: overwhelming numbers. There’s just too many of them to all get eaten when they all emerge at once, so some will survive and reproduce, Raupp says.

This is not an invasion. The cicadas have been here the entire time, quietly feeding off tree roots underground, not asleep, just moving slowly waiting for their body clocks tell them it is time to come out and breed. They’ve been in America for millions of years, far longer than people.

When they emerge, it gets noisy — 105 decibels noisy, like “a singles bar gone horribly, horribly wrong,” Cooley says. There are three distinct cicada species and each has its own mating song.

They aren’t locusts and the only plants they damage are young trees, which can be netted. The year after a big batch of cicadas, trees actually do better because dead bugs serve as fertilizer, Kritsky says.

People tend to be scared of the wrong insects, says University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum. The mosquito kills more people than any other animals because of malaria and other diseases. Yet some people really dread the cicada emergence, she said.

“I think it’s the fact that they’re an inconvenience. Also, when they die in mass numbers they smell bad,” Berenbaum says. “They really disrupt our sense of order.”

But others are fond of cicadas — and even munch on them, using recipes like those in a University of Maryland cookbook. And for scientists like Cooley, there is a real beauty in their life cycle.

“This is a feel-good story, folks. It really is and it’s in a year we need more,” he says. “When they come out, it’s a great sign that forests are in good shape. All is as it is supposed to be.”

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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A security guard was wounded in a drive-by shooting as the mother of five helped a senior citizen in the lobby of a Park Manor apartment building Tuesday evening.

Someone opened fire from a passing dark-colored car toward the lobby of the Lafayette Plaza Housing Cooperative at 50 W. 71st St. shortly before 6 p.m., according to Chicago police.

One of the bullets struck Keiona James, 37, according to her sister Kira Allen. “She was just doing her job and they started shooting,” Allen said. “She really didn’t see anything.”

Paramedics took James to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, police said. James didn’t require surgery and was expected to be released from the hospital soon, Allen said.

In a phone call, James said she was “all right” but declined to say more.

Allen said she doesn’t believe her sister was the target of the shooting. James lives far from where she works and doesn’t know anyone in the neighborhood.

Police said an 18-year-old man was also injured in the shooting, but was not shot. He showed up at St. Bernard Hospital with abrasions, police said. In an earlier statement, officers said he had suffered a gunshot wound.

No one was in custody, police said.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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Little did Lisa Carlson Chrisopoulos know when she bought the building at 190 Northfield Road in Northfield in early 2020 that its crowning feature would be the ventilation system. (The previous owner used the space as a garage for his exhaust-spewing Ferrari collection.) Seeing its white floor and walls and corrugated metal ceiling, she knew she could transform the place into an expansive new home for Heritage Trail Mall, the antique bazaar she ran with her parents and sister in Wilmette for nearly 28 years. With a name tweak, Heritage Trail Mercantile opened in the new location in October with 42 vendors, many of them carryovers from the original spot. Chrisopoulos now runs the market solo, but pandemic-friendly HVAC system aside, much about it will be familiar to her regulars: booths packed with smartly curated antique, vintage, and handmade wares, ranging from substantial 19th-century worktables to spindly midcentury modern lamps to trendy-again ’90s costume jewelry. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, just ask: Chrisopoulos has a crazy good memory and will keep an eye out during her regular picking trips. “It just sticks in my brain,” she says. “On my day off, it’s still the thrill of the hunt.”

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Chicago Bulls: What’s next for the future of the team? by Ryan Taylor

The Chicago Bears just added another veteran wide receiver to the Bears’ roster in Damiere Byrd, which is a smart and self-aware move by general manager Ryan Pace.

The Chicago Bears need help with the wide receiver position ahead of 2021.

The Bears’ signing of Damiere Byrd, 27, is an excellent one. The veteran wide receiver had a breakout season last year with the New England Patriots, catching 47 balls for 604 yards and one touchdown.

Byrd is an excellent route-runner and is efficient at creating space during broken plays. His footwork and agility could use some work but he is a smart player. To recap, alongside Byrd, the Bears wide-receiver room now looks like Allen Robinson, Darnell Mooney, Marquise Goodwin, Anthony Miller, Riley Ridley, and Dazz Newsome as the likely players.

This move may cause cuts to players like Anthony Miller or Riley Ridley off of the roster, considering they have not contributed much in their time in Chicago. The fact that Charles Leno was just released after the Bears took two high-profile linemen from the draft could also help.

Why was the move for Byrd and Goodwin solid for the Bears?

Let’s break down the history of free agency vs. the draft for general manager Ryan Pace’s tenure with the Chicago Bears.

From the draft, the Bears have taken these receivers since 2015 (Pace’s first draft).

• 2015 — Kevin White (first round)
• 2016 — Danny Braverman (seventh round)
• 2018 — Anthony Miller (second round) and Javon Wims (seventh round)
• 2019 — Riley Ridley (fourth round)
• 2020 — Darnell Mooney (fifth round)
• 2021 — Dazz Newsome (sixth round)

See the pattern? Outside of Mooney’s fantastic rookie season with the Bears, Pace’s history of drafting wide receivers is terrible. In fact, his tight end picks are no better. Before the drafting of Cole Kmet in 2020, Pace took Adam Shaheen in the second round of the 2017 draft.

From the free agency, Pace has recruited and signed these receivers to the team.

• 2015 — Eddie Royal
• 2017 — Markus Wheaton
• 2018 — Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel
• 2020 — Marquise Goodwin and Damiere Byrd

While Royal and Wheaton could be argued as misses for Pace, the others are great signings. Obviously, Robinson was a big reason that Pace was named executive of the year in 2018. Gabriel combined for over 600 yards and six touchdowns in his two years with the Bears.

Now, next season will be time to see what Byrd and Goodwin will have to offer the Bears’ wide receiver room. Pace has done a great job by dabbling with wide receivers from the draft with Dazz Newsome on day three of the draft and Khalil McCain as an undrafted free agent.

The experienced receivers (Goodwin and Byrd) will provide great pieces to Nagy’s offense, which prefers speedy route runners that can play vertical threats. Also, and possibly, more importantly, they will be key in the development of Justin Fields as he attempts to take over the starting job as soon as possible.

The #Bears are signing WR Damiere Byrd to a one-year deal, source says. Coming off career highs with 47 catches and 604 yards with the #Patriots this past season.

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) May 4, 2021

The only question now is — how will head coach Matt Nagy respond?

As I mentioned before in my Bears’ coverage, Ryan Pace has done his job by constructing an offensive-minded roster to appease the Bears’ troubles.

He drafted a possible franchise quarterback, aggressive offensive linemen, brought in backup running backs for last season’s short-handed David Montgomery, and added veteran depth to the wide receiver room. A chef’s kiss of roster building for Pace.

Next: Chicago Bears: Post-2021 NFL Draft 53-man roster projection

Now, Matt Nagy has plenty of options to construct his offense around Justin Fields. The receivers add great depth to route-running, isolation, and passing concepts far beyond what the Bears ever dreamed possible. The ball is in your court, Coach Nagy.

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A security guard was wounded in a drive-by shooting as the mother of five helped a senior citizen in the lobby of a Park Manor apartment building Tuesday evening.

Someone opened fire from a passing dark-colored car toward the lobby of the Lafayette Plaza Housing Cooperative at 50 W. 71st St. shortly before 6 p.m., according to Chicago police.

One of the bullets struck Keiona James, 37, according to her sister Kira Allen. “She was just doing her job and they started shooting,” Allen said. “She really didn’t see anything.”

Paramedics took James to the University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, police said. James didn’t require surgery and was expected to be released from the hospital soon, Allen said.

In a phone call, James said she was “all right” but declined to say more.

Allen said she doesn’t believe her sister was the target of the shooting. James lives far from where she works and doesn’t know anyone in the neighborhood.

Police said an 18-year-old man was also injured in the shooting, but was not shot. He showed up at St. Bernard Hospital with abrasions, police said. In an earlier statement, officers said he had suffered a gunshot wound.

No one was in custody, police said.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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