Urlacher Picks Notre Dame, Green Bay Chooses Love, NFL Network Blackout, Looking at 2024, and Other Bears Bullets
One month from today at Soldier Field: Taylor Swift.
That’s it. That’s your Bullets lead-in today.
My friends and I will do our best not to wreck the joint. But I can’t make any promises.
- The Packers had a decision to make when it came to Jordan Love’s fifth-year option, made it, and left me perplexed:
- Essentially, the Packers are picking up the fifth-year option. But they are doing so at a lesser rate. The more I think about it, the more I realize it is a pretty “meh” deal. What’s worse is that I feel like I’m wasting brainpower thinking about a “meh” deal. This feels like the football equivalent of dating out of convenience. You’re here throwing a football. I’m here with capable hands. Let’s link up and see where it takes us. Those relationships rarely end well. And as an outside observer, I’ve got my popcorn ready.
- Let it be known I do not want the Packers to bottom out — if only because I want them to be nowhere near a place where they can draft Caleb Williams or Drake Maye (next year’s top QB prospects). In fact, I might root for Love to be Wisconsin-branded Kirk Cousins. Good enough to tie-up a team’s financials, but not good enough to break through the glass ceiling.
- Yes, I know Cousins puts up good-looking numbers. There is a reason that guy is a popular choice at quarterback in fantasy football. But I’m always mindful that Cousins was 1-4 against the Bears from 2018-20 when Chicago’s football team was putting out a competitive product. And I’ll never forget that Cousins lost to a Bears team that was simply going through the motions in what was a win-or-go home game at US Bank Stadium in the 2018 regular-season finale. In other words, no, I’m not afraid of Love becoming Cousins and having the words above haunt me.
- Let’s circle back to the Bears, who had a pretty good time during NFL Draft weekend. And the more we step away from the madness, the more context we’re getting. This is an interesting bit of framing from the Sun-Times’ Mark Potash:
- The roster turnover that has taken place over in the 462 days that GM Ryan Poles has been in charge is remarkable. And it is evident all over the field — particularly on defense. Chicago’s secondary projects to have four Week 1 starters (Kyler Gordon, Jaquan Brisker, Tyrique Stevenson) who were hand-picked by Poles. All three linebackers (Tremaine Edmunds, T.J. Edwards, Jack Sanborn) are all new-ish. Sure, the Bears still need to shake things out on the D-line, but seven of the top-8 players on the depth chart have been here for one season or less. It happened all so swiftly, you might’ve missed it if you blinked.
- Jacob Infante is one of my favorite Bears content guys because he has a year-round grasp on the NFL Draft. So of course it was Jacob being the first on my radar with a 2024 mock draft:
- OK, so I’m not in a position to quibble about who’s going to the Bears with these picks. My only problem with this mock is that the Bears aren’t picking 32nd — which is where they’ll be picking in 2024 after winning the Super Bowl.
- Some words from an old friend. JJ Stankevitz (who used to be on the Bears beat for NBC Sports Chicago) is a Jack-of-all-trades with the Colts. Stankevitz gets into his writing bag and dives deep into the process that led to Indy drafting Florida QB Anthony Richardson. It is a thorough piece of work that I’d encourage you to read.
- If you are a Comcast/XFINITY subscriber like me and were wondering what happened to NFL Network, Jeff Agrest (Sun-Times) shares the news that the cable provider dropped NFL Network after its carriage agreement expired. The blackout comes at a time when the league has been pushing and promoting NFL Sunday Ticket and RedZone packages on YouTubeTV. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy NFL Network’s coverage. Even if GMFB isn’t the same without Kay Adams, that show is the gold standard of morning sports talk shows. But an offseason blackout doesn’t bug me right now. We’ll see if that changes when July or August comes around.
- I’ll admit the one thing that nags me about this situation is that this all feels like a money grab. And, yes, I should be accustomed to this by now. But is there no length the NFL won’t go to squeeze every dollar out of its fans’ pockets? I’d say it is getting absurd, but we’re way beyond that at this point.
- It is wild to think about how the NFL Draft went from being something I used to watch with my childhood bestie and his pops on a Saturday morning during the spring to THIS:
- It’s fun to think about Brian Urlacher’s son climbing the prospect ranks and landing at Notre Dame:
- I’m not even a Notre Dame fan, but that is a fun landing spot for young Kennedy Urlacher. And a quality get for Head Coach Marcus Freeman — who was a fifth-round pick by the Bears in 2009 when Brian Urlacher was in the prime of his Bears career. What a connection to make!
- Joakim Noah continues to give back to the city of Chicago:
- A Chicago Blackhawks draft pick collection update from Tab:
