Category: Bears

Legendary Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers dies at 77

Pro Football Hall of Famer Gale Sayers, the great Chicago Bears running back, has died at the age of 77

The world of football has lost one of its greatest Hall of Famers. Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers died Wednesday at the age of 77.

He had been diagnosed with dementia in 2012, his wife Ardythe announced in 2017.

“All those who love the game of football mourn the loss of one of the greatest to ever play this Game with the passing of Chicago Bears legend Gale Sayers,” Hall of Fame president and CEO David Baker said in a statement. “He was the very essence of a team player — quiet, unassuming and always ready to compliment a teammate for a key block. Gale was an extraordinary man who overcame a great deal of adversity during his NFL career and life.

 “The ‘Kansas Comet’ burst onto the scene in the National Football League and captured the attention of all of America. Despite playing only 68 NFL games because of an injury-shortened career, Gale was a clear-cut — and first-ballot — Hall of Famer for his accomplishments on the field and for the man of character he was in life.

“The entire Pro Football Hall of Fame family mourns the passing of Gale. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Ardie, and their entire family. We will forever keep his legacy alive to serve as inspiration for future generations. The Hall of Fame flag will fly at half-staff until he is laid to rest.”

Sayers, the “Kansas Comet,” was drafted in 1965 out of Kansas. The Bears had back-to-back selections and chose Dick Butkus out of Illinois third and then Sayers fourth.

Sayers scored 56 touchdowns in 64 games over his first five seasons in the NFL from 1965-69 — 39 rushing, nine receiving, six on kickoff returns, and two on punt returns. He also threw a touchdown pass. Sayers totaled 9,435 all-purpose yards.

“If you wish to see perfection as a running back, you had best get a hold of a film of Gale Sayers,” Bears founder George Halas said in 1977 when he presented Sayers for Hall of Fame enshrinement. “He was poetry in motion. His like will never be seen again.”

His career was ruined by a knee injury suffered against the San Francisco 49ers in 1968.

Per the Chicago Tribune:

The play — “49 Toss Left” — was called in the huddle by quarterback Virgil Carter. It was designed to be run to the outside of the left tackle. It called for Sayers’ blocker, Randy Jackson, to lead the way, but instead of waiting a half second for the play to unfold, Sayers instinctively ran up on the heels of his blocker.

Sayers planted his right leg to make a cut, but San Francisco 49ers right cornerback back Kermit Alexander lunged ahead and pounced on his leg.

There was no arthroscopic surgery then and the damage done took away much of his speed and elusiveness. He did run for a league-leading 1,032 yards in 1969 but suffered another knee injury the following year.

Sayers gained mainstream notice for his friendship with fellow Bears RB Brian Piccolo. Their bond became the movie “Brian’s Song, which told the story of how the free-agent Piccolo and Sayers became close friends and of cancer that struck down Piccolo.

“You flatter me by giving me this award,” Sayers said in his speech for the George Halas Award. “But I tell you that I accept it for Brian Piccolo. It is mine tonight. It is Brian Piccolo’s tomorrow.”

Watch: Giants’ Saquon Barkley out for game with knee injury

Saquon Barkley of the Giants exited Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears with an apparent right knee injury.

Saquon Barkley had an amazing rookie season. The Giants’ second overall pick from Penn State was remarkable. He hit the sophomore jinx and it derailed him with an ankle injury.

Sunday against the Chicago Bears, the former Penn State star exited the game and appeared to be in major pain on the sidelines with an injury to his right leg.

It was one of a number of major injuries early in Week 2.

 

Watch: Detroit Lions’ Jamie Collins Sr. tossed for ‘head-butting’ official

Jamie Collins Sr. has been ejected from the Bears-Lions game for contact with an official

It might have been accidental, but that matters not. Detroit Lions linebacker Jamie Collins was booted from Sunday’s game with the Chicago Bears for making contact with an official.

Actually, one could call it head-butting the official to the chest.

Block or charge? Collins is gone from the game either way.

Report: Tom Brady mulled signing with the Saints if …

Tom Brady in a Saints uniform? It could have happened.

Tom Brady will make his Tampa Bay Buccaneers debut Sunday in New Orleans against the Saints. The G.O.A.T. could have been playing for the home team if things had fallen into place, according to a report.

Per Ian Rapoport:

Brady made no secret of the fact that if (Drew) Brees was retiring and heading to the TV booth, Brady would like to replace him. Brady mentioned this, sources say, to a few Saints players, knowing that word would get back. New Orleans was into it, as well, with Brady seen by head coach Sean Payton as the perfect replacement for Brees.

However, when Brees announced he was not done yet, the Brady-to-New-Orleans move died. Meanwhile, it appears the Patriots would not have had an issue with Brady and New Orleans talking, as NBCSports Boston reported the Patriots wouldn’t file tampering charges if a team spoke with Brady before his contract was up. They wanted him to know his market.

The report also says the Bears received consideration by Brady but cold weather sent shivers into his thought process.

Eventually, the Bucs won out over the Los Angeles Chargers, who saw Philip Rivers leave for Indianapolis via free agency.

As for Brady’s Bucs contract:

Brady gets $500,000 if the Bucs make the playoffs. That becomes $750,000 if they win a wild-card game or get a bye, and that becomes $1.25 million if they win a divisional round game, which turns into $1.75 million if they advance to the Super Bowl. It hits the max of $2.25 million if they win the Super Bowl.

As for the personal performance incentives, Brady can hit the max value of $2.25 million if he accomplishes four of five categories (and has a minimum of 224 attempts). Hitting each incentive by itself earns him $562,000, while four of them net him $2.25 million. Those incentives are: top 5 in passer rating, top 5 in passing TDs or 25 or m

Report: Kenny Albert off Bears-Lions broadcast due to COVID protocol

COVID-19 rules will keep Kenny Albert from calling the Bears-Lions season opener on FOX.

The shuffling in announce booth continues. This one, however, was an unexpected turn. The always-solid Kenny Albert will not be able to do play-by-play Sunday as scheduled on the Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions game because of COVID-19 protocol, the New York Post reports.

Albert has been calling Stanley Cup playoff games for NBC in Edmonton. The COVID-19 rules in the States are a person must quarantine for two weeks after coming from a foreign country.

FOX will go to a familiar voice as the replacement for Albert, 77-year-old Dick Stockton, who has called games for more than 50 years. He will work with Jon Vilma, who is debuting as a color analyst for the network.

All NFL play-by-players and analysts are tested on-site before calling the games.

Former NFL WR Josh Bellamy charged in massive COVID-19 relief scam

Former Bear and Jet WR Josh Bellamy has been charged in a massive fraud scheme involving COVID-19 relief.

Josh Bellamy, a wide receiver who was with four teams from 2012-19 and was released by the New York Jets Tuesday, was one of 50 people across 16 states charged Thursday with attempting to defraud the government out of up to $175 million in COVID-19 relief money.

Bellamy’s alleged role in the scheme saw the former Chicago Bear and Jet obtain a loan worth more than $1.24 million from the Paycheck Protection Program for a company called Drip Entertainment LLC (a Florida company). The loans were designed to help small businesses recover from the coronavirus pandemic for specific purposes.

Bellamy, who also spent time early in his career with Kansas City and Washington, is alleged in the complaint to have deposited the money into his personal bank account, which at the time had $2.51. In a three-month span this spring and summer, the complaint alleges Bellamy withdrew more than $302,000, spending $104,000 on luxury goods and jewelry and another $62,774 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Florida.

Bellamy was charged in a federal criminal complaint with fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.

Per the Tampa Bay Tribune:

Bellamy also was involved in the preparation of at least 90 fraudulent applications for friends and family, the complaint says. Those loans were worth as much as $24 million; at least $17.4 million worth were approved. Ten other co-conspirators were charged in the alleged scheme.

According to the complaint, an undercover agent posing as a potential loan partner, asked Bellamy how many employees he had. “I got as many employees as I want,” the complaint quotes Bellamy.

Bellamy, 31, had 78 catches for 999 yards and five touchdowns in his career. All but two of the receptions came as a Bear. He was born in St. Petersburg, Fl, and played college ball at Louisville.

 

Leonard Fournette will need to do more if he wants to ‘matter’ in the NFL

If now-free agent running back Leonard Fournette is to succeed in the NFL, he’ll have to expand his skill set in the right system.

When people say that “running backs don’t matter,” the point is not, of course, that teams can win without running backs or running games altogether. The Baltimore Ravens, San Francisco 49ers, and Seattle Seahwaks, with their run-led offenses and 41 combined wins in the 2019 season could tell you that. The actual point of the “running backs don’t matter” meme has more to do with the thought that, with exceedingly rare exceptions, the skill set required to excel at the position is common enough, and scheme-dependent enough, to render running backs ill-advised players when it comes to high draft picks and lucrative contract extensions.

In 2017, the Jacksonville Jaguars ignored this philosophy and selected LSU running back Leonard Fournette with the fourth overall pick. In doing so, the team held fast with the idea of Blake Bortles at quarterback, and banked on Fournette becoming the epicenter of an offense that would lead with old-school power, and remain mistake-proof enough to let the Jaguars’ top-flight defense be the real story. And with that commitment to Bortles, the very definition of a replacement-level player, Jacksonville made a quarterback-level commitment to the fungible player, and revealed a remarkable misunderstanding of the importance of the quarterback position in the modern NFL. The Jaguars left Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson on the board because they didn’t want to be wrong about Bortles, and they’ve paid the price for that ever since they came within a few plays of beating the Patriots in the 2017 AFC Championship game.

With the Monday news that the Jaguars released Fournette, the 2017 draft pick seems even more erroneous in retrospect. Because Fournette never lived up to his billing as a power back who could define an offense. Among running backs with at least 300 total attempts from 2017 through 2019, Fournette ranks fifth with 666 attempts, seventh with 2,631 yards, tied for 10th with 17 rushing touchdown, and 33rd in the NFL with a ghastly 3.95 yards per attempt. Green Bay’s Aaron Jones, who the Packers took in the fifth round of the 2017 draft, leads the NFL over that period of time with 5.02 yards per carry, and Jones’ 2019 total of 16 rushing touchdowns is one less than Fournette’s career total.

But wait. as they say, there’s more!

For an alleged power back, Fournette doesn’t do as much as you’d expect to create additional yards in power situations. Per Pro Football Focus, he ranked fifth in the NFL last season with 886 yards after contact, but that played out to just 3.34 yards after contact per carry, which ranked 11th. And his 42 missed tackles on rushing attempts was far below the league-leading 69 put up by Josh Jacobs of the Raiders. Fournette is not a predominant factor in the passing game, he’s not a top-flight blocker, and it’s going to be hard for him to rise above the idea that he’s an 1980s running back in the new millennium. Guys like this aren’t the foundation of their offenses — they’re rotational entities at best.

And even given the proposition that Fournette would be better-served in a rotation, his success will be far from automatic. Fournette is a running back who generally needs open space to make things happen — he’s not going to work his way out of difficult situations on a consistent enough basis for that to be a hallmark of his style.

Let’s go to the tape.

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NFL Shop alternate camouflage helmets are selling fast

The NFL is selling team helmets with a camouflage design.

Check out some of the cool Camo Alternate helmets the NFL popped out Wednesday.

The video shows how the helmets come together — rapidly — and some of them have really cool looks.

If you like them enough to buy one, click here. It will set you back anywhere from $54.99-$429.99 per helmet. And they are selling fast, per the site.

CBS Sports Network adds Kyle Long to ‘That Other Pregame Show’

CBS Sports Network added former Bear Kyle Long to ‘That Other Pregame Show’

There will be another Long on a pregame show this upcoming NFL season.

Hall of Famer Howie Long is a fixture on the FOX pregame. Now, his recently retired son Kyle will be on CBS Sports’ Network’s “That Other Pregame Show” as it heads into its eighth season.

“I am very excited to begin my broadcasting career by joining the CBS Sports family and the ‘TOPS’ team,” Long, who was the 20th pick in the 2013 NFL Draft out of Oregon, said in a statement.

“As a recently retired player, Kyle brings a knowledge straight from the field of today’s game coupled with the mindset of its current generation of athletes,” Harold Bryant, CBS Sports’ executive producer and senior vice president of production, said in the announcement.

Long joins panelists Adam Schein, Amy Trask and London Fletcher; Schein and Trask have been there since the show’s 2013 beginnings, while Fletcher joined in 2014.

 

Mike Ditka roars: ‘If you can’t respect our national anthem, get the hell out of the country’

Mike Ditka says people/players who kneel during the national anthem should ‘get the hell out of the country.’

Former Chicago Bears legend and current owner chairman of the X League, a women’s pro football league, has strong opinions about athletes kneeling during the national anthem.

The Hall of Famer said if it were up to him, he would not have players in his league kneeling in his league, while admitting to being old-fashioned.

Per TMZ.com:

“If you can’t respect our national anthem, get the hell out of the country,” Ditka said. “That’s the way I feel. Of course, I’m old fashioned, so I’m only going to say what I feel.

“You don’t protest against the flag and you don’t protest against this country who’s given you the opportunities to make a living playing a sport that you never thought would happen. So, I don’t want to hear all the crap.”