The Networks’ Faith in Fields, Chargers Strike Again, Where Are We Traveling? And Other Bears Bullets
Mother’s Day is SUNDAY. If you can do something nice for your mom or a motherly figure in your life, I’d encourage you to do so. My mother isn’t with me anymore and it always weighs heavily this time of year. Enjoy the moments while you can still have them because nothing lasts forever.
- The Chicago Bears joined the rest of the NFL in releasing their 2023 schedule on Thursday. And I must say this is hands-down the best schedule release the team has ever pushed onto our timelines:’
- What a star-studded cast. Kudos to the current and former players for chipping in to make a winner. Justin Fields. Peanut Tillman. Spice Adams. Khalil Herbert. Seth Rollins. Darnell Mooney. Jack Sanborn. Pat Scales. Braxton Jones. Kyler Gordon. Tremaine Edmunds. T.J. Edwards. What an incredible group. They better win an Emmy for this one.
- So … who else has the Bears down for 17 wins this year?
- BLOOPERS!
- Lots more schedule stuff in Bears content creation circles. Kevin Fishbain (The Athletic), Will DeWitt (CHGO), Courtney Cronin (ESPN), and Patrick Finley (Sun-Times) have some of my favorite morning-after pieces. Meanwhile, the Tribune’s trio of writers (Colleen Kane, Dan Wiederer, Brad Biggs) drop off some insight and make predictions. Because it’s never too early to shoot that shot.
- My favorite thing about the schedule is that the Bears are getting some prime-time love:
- Don’t say we didn’t warn ya (because we totally did).
- Haters gonna hate when it comes to Justin Fields. But QB1’s breakthrough season in 2022 has given TV execs enough to put the Bears on Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, and Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football (TWICE!) this year. Plus, a handful of late afternoon starts that are generally reserved for FOX’s “America’s Game of the Week” time slot. If this team is good in 2023, they’ll have more of those prime spots down the stretch.
- My favorite part of the schedule are the bookend Bears-Packers showdowns. If you haven’t been to Lambeau Field, I’d highly recommend it. It is a quality tailgating experience in a town that gives off suburban Chicago vibes. Think Naperville, but if it had a stadium that sat 80,000 people and access to New Glarus Spotted Cow on tap.
- On the other end of the spectrum, my least favorite part of the schedule is that all of my top-ranked destinations have schedule conflicts with other engagements. I realize that’s just a me problem and I’ll own it. But I’m a bit miffed. Scheduling Los Angeles and New Orleans as back-to-back road games feels like an affront to me and I’ll be making sternly worded tweets at Roger Goodell’s burner later today.
- I can’t front, the Chargers stuck the landing here:
- Do I like the Week 13 bye because it positions the Bears to make key adjustments before a season-closing five-game stretch? Or do I like it because 13 is Taylor Swift’s favorite number and I’m seeing it as a sign? I don’t know the answer to that question just yet.
- More schedule nuggets are coming our way from our friends at BN’s NFL wing.
- Get to bidding:
- He’s trying so hard to be like Mike:
- Some love for Cubs catcher Yan Gomes, who’s been a low-key MVP for this team:
- The Connor Bedard trickle-down effect figures to be HUGE:
- META: We got a sudden wave of folks reaching out about being blocked/banned/spam-listed by Disqus this week, so I’m going to take a wild guess and say there was likely a bug. If that has happened to you and you’re thinking, “Why in the world would they banned me?!” – we almost never ban anyone, except for the worst of repeat offenders – we probably didn’t ban you. So, if you find yourself getting a notification about being banned recently out of nowhere, try logging out, clearing cache and cookies, restarting, and logging back in. In the past when things like this have happened, that usually clears it up for folks.
