NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Bears front office undoubtedly wants to be 100% focused on the NFL Draft this week, but it seems they’ll have a significant off-the-field issue to deal with.
New wide receiver Byron Pringle is in some trouble:
Bears WR Byron Pringle was arrested Saturday in Florida after police say they busted him doing donuts in his Hellcat on a suspended license, with his child in the car. Cops say the 4x pro was "verbally confrontational." https://t.co/9Te0IljuBU
— TMZ (@TMZ) April 24, 2022
Doing some donuts isn’t the worst thing in the world, though obviously the presence of a child in the back seat makes it quite a bit more disconcerting. And doing it on a suspended license, is, uh, also not great. We’ll have to see what other details emerge about the arrest, itself, because “verbally confrontational” doesn’t really tell us all that much. On the whole, it’s safe to say there’s a range of possible descriptions of this episode when the full set of facts are known, and they range from “that’s bad, but we can work through this” to “oh yeah, that’s really awful.” I just want to have more information and more context before commenting too aggressively in either direction.
I would expect we’ll hear from the Bears in time on this, and there will be more detail on what comes next for Pringle. Aside from legal consequences, he could face consequences from the Bears and/or the NFL.
Pringle, 28, was signed to impact not only the passing game (depending on other pass-catching options added, Pringle could be the number one man in the slot), but also on special teams. I wouldn’t call him a huge addition in the offseason, but given how little the Bears have added on offense – and how needy they are in the receiver corps – Pringle was relatively important. Last year with the Kansas City Chiefs, Pringle had 42 catches on 60 targets, accumulating 568 receiving yards and 5 touchdowns.
More soon.
