Virginia McCaskey’s Reaction to the Khalil Mack Trade is Priceless and Other Bullets

I completed my first ever fantasy football auction draft and I’m not sure how I ever played the game before this. Don’t get me wrong, I still like the traditional snake draft. It’s just that I’m not sure I want to do one ever again after doing an auction.

  • Oh, to be a fly on the elevator wall when Chicago Bears Chairman George McCaskey informed his mother Virginia about the trade the team was making to acquire Khalil Mack, as well as the cost of doing business (two first-round picks and an extension that surpassed $100 million). “Her jaw drops,” McCaskey said, via Patrick Finley of the Sun-Times. “And then the doors open. That was the end of the conversation.”
  • To be fair, my jaw dropped too. Everyone’s did. But needless to say, that was just the beginning of the conversation for us.
  • The Cleveland Browns were one of the teams who were “in” on the Mack sweepstakes. This was the reaction of Head Coach Hue Jackson, via last night’s episodes of HBO’s Hard Knocks:
  • Mack’s addition to the Bears roster makes what was once a shallow group of outside linebackers/edge defenders look a little deeper now. Sam Acho stands to lose a fair amount of snaps now that Mack is starting across from Leonard Floyd. To his credit, Acho takes a big-picture view of the situation. “I want to be on the field, but I also want to win Super Bowls,” Acho said, via Madeline Kenney of the Sun-Times. “And so Khalil is going to help us win Super Bowls.”
  • Acho started 12 games and played on 60 percent of the team’s total defensive snaps. While Acho’s playing time will be trimmed, this could allow the Bears to use him as a situational defender. After all, Acho was one of the league’s better run-defending 3-4 outside linebackers last year. Surely, Vic Fangio will find a way to properly deploy Acho throughout the year.
  • Aaron Lynch also looks like an odd-man out in the wake of the trade news. The Bears signed Lynch to a one-year “prove it” deal in the offseason with the hope that reuniting with Fangio (who coached him in San Francisco) would light a fire that would spark his resurgence. But as Colleen Kane of the Tribune writes, there are now questions regarding Lynch’s status moving forward.
  • Lynch is listed as the third-string outside linebacker behind Mack and Acho, according to the Bears’ first regular season depth chart. Injuries put Lynch behind the 8-ball early in his Bears career, limited him in offseason practices, training camp drills, and he didn’t even participate in any preseason action. But still … it would be hard to imagine Fangio not being creative enough to get everyone who earns playing time a shot to make it on the field.
  • Over at NBC Sports Chicago, JJ Stankevitz takes note of the impact Mack will have on his new defensive teammates. Mack is the type of talent whose mere presence makes everyone around him better and more dangerous. Once opposing blockers have to account for Mack, that leaves players such as Akiem Hicks, Eddie Goldman, Leonard Floyd, and Danny Trevathan available to become playmakers. Hicks led the Bears with 8.5 sacks last year and was the primary target opposing offenses tried to limit last year. Good luck choosing between him and Mack, especially if they play on the same side of the field.
  • One of these years, I’ll play in a fantasy football league that includes an individual defensive player spot:
  • I’d like to hit the pause button and laugh at something that came across my timeline yesterday that features the Minnesota Vikings’ new quarterback:
  • https://twitter.com/YoCamron/status/1037034627586826246

  • Oh, man. Mack, Floyd, Hicks, and the rest of the gang should have fun with this guy.
  • Hub Arkush views the Bears as a vastly improved team, but isn’t quite sure how much better the Bears off are after the Mack trade. Arkush’s Daily Herald piece explains that Chicago doesn’t have the same caliber of talent that Minnesota, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and the L.A. Rams have. And if they’re going to be as good as they think they are, they’ll have to catch (and pass) New Orleans, Green Bay, and Carolina. The NFC is stacked, but no one said it was going to be easy. Then again, how many people would have predicted the Eagles and the Rams being in the upper echelon of the league along with the Falcons, Saints, Packers, and Panthers?
  • Speaking of the Packers, let’s not forget they are coming off a sub-.500 year, which is a rarity these days. Brad Biggs of the Tribune traveled up north to get the scoop on a re-worked Green Bay squad that didn’t take well to losing and showed it with sweeping organizational change. Oh, and they’ll have a healthy Aaron Rodgers re-joining the squad for opening night.
  • written by

    Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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