Portillo’s chocolate-covered strawberry shake is back for a limited time. No, that’s #notanad. But I suppose that counts as an endorsement of my favorite seasonal shake the Chicagoland grub supplier makes. And I could probably make a case as the best seasonal fast food shake anyone makes. I’m willing to be proven wrong. But there is something about chocolate-covered strawberry awesomeness that really connects with me.
Sigh. I probably should’ve written Bullets *AFTER* breakfast. Oops.
- There are worse ways to spend a Saturday in February when you probably weren’t going out anyway than to soak in everything that was the Senior Bowl. My main takeaway from Saturday’s festivities Bowl is that there are too many interesting offensive linemen who played for the Bears to come away from the 2023 NFL Draft without (at least) one of them joining Chicago’s football team. Hearing NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah say there were five players who would be starting linemen in the league next year on that opening series has a head-turning moment for me. Jeremiah was speaking of tackle/guard Matthew Bergeron (Syracuse), guard Steve Avila (TCU), center John Michael Schmitz (Minnesota), guard O’Cyrus Torrence (Florida), and tackle Darnell Wright (Tennessee). Come away with at least one of those dudes, please.
- FWIW: Wright, Torrence, tight end Luke Musgrave, and offensive lineman Cody Mauch were among the Senior Bowl participants who landed on Jeremiah’s top 50 prospects reveal. That list is worth keeping handy for a later date.
- If the Bears want to double down on their Senior Bowl intel, then I’d be down to see them snag Michigan State receiver Jayden Reed:
- Let it be known that Reed wasn’t the only receiver making waves on Saturday:
- OK, sure. That is *NOT* the proper way to defend the deep ball. Even still … Stanford’s Michael Wilson raised his profile during Senior Bowl week. And scoring a touchdown in the game was a nice cherry on top. Seeing Reed and Wilson show up with splash plays makes me want to dive into this receiver class a little more.
- There was some defense played on Saturday. And Virginia cornerback Anthony Johnson’s pick-six put up points for Luke Getsy’s American squad:
- We can talk about the Bears’ offensive needs until we’re blue in the face. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have done exactly that at some point since we began this site in 2017. But let’s not forget Chicago’s needs at cornerback. Remember, the idea is to build a Super Bowl contender. Not just a great offense or defense. But a well-rounded team. Look at the Eagles and Chiefs. They are both offensive juggernauts. But both are strong defensively. I want that for the Bears in the not-too-distant future.
- Your favorite offensive line prospect did something unique on Saturday:
- If Cody Mauch shows that he can make the transition from outside to inside, then I’m going to be all-in on the Bears finagling their way into using a pick on him at some point in the 2023 NFL Draft.
- It was refreshing to hear Getsy on the mic. This moment gave me a genuine chuckle:
- Getsy was insulted that you’d even try comparing anyone on that field with Justin Fields. Frankly, it sounds like the Bears are very much behind Fields moving forward. And I can’t say I blame ’em. Not one bit.
- Here’s hoping you caught the NFL Network broadcast team casually name-checking QB-needy teams. If you didn’t, do sweat it. We’ve got you covered.
- AHEM!
- Don’t let me catch any of you bad-mouthing the Senior Bowl or its importance. Had the Bears done a better job of doing their due diligence at the Senior Bowl in 2017, maybe they’d have come away with someone like Cooper Kupp, Evan Engram, Jake Elliott, or Desmond King. Yours truly might never get over Ryan Pace and John Fox wasting that opportunity.
- Seeing this annoys me:
- I can count the number of successful screens run during the Matt Nagy era on one hand. So it is tremendously frustrating to see the Chiefs run them effortlessly โ and in big moments. How could Nagy spend so much time with Andy Reid and still fail at bringing a simple, working screen concept to Chicago? It boggles my mind.
- The mock drafts are getting more creative with each day:
- We love tight ends, don’t we?
- OK, so finding a tight end isn’t a high-priority need. But rounding out that position with some youth instead of piecing it together with one-year stop-gaps would be a nice change of direction when it comes to team building.
- The mock drafts are getting more creative with each passing day:
- Well, this is concerning:
- Ranking hockey prospects:
The Bulls are such a weird team: