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“The meetings were incredible, and before we broke, I told them all how proud I was,” Poles said. “Because as a new GM you come in, you’re like, ‘All right, you’re evaluating them, you’re evaluating the evaluators.’ At the end of it, the thing that stood out to me is there’s a group of really, really good people that worked really hard this fall to gather the information.

For much of his childhood in Edmonton, Alberta, though, Uguak preferred the gridiron to the hardwood, spending a lot of his time playing football. Sure, he would play pickup basketball games for fun with friends. But it was a growth spurt in his early teenage years that ultimately prompted him to give competitive basketball a try.

You can make a compelling case for a lot of positions if the Bears come out of the gates with an expensive signing or two when the new league year begins March 16. If I had to pick two, I would start with the offensive line and wide receiver. Poles talked about getting the O-line right from Day 1, and without a first-round draft pick, how else can he make an impactful move there? Sure, he could re-sign James Daniels, who is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent, but if he wants to improve the line, he’ll be seeking to accomplish more. I mention wide receiver because the depth chart there is as bare as it gets. Poles needs to add to the receiver group in free agency and the draft, at minimum importing two players who can be productive for Fields.

“If he’s here on the last day of the season,” Davidson said of Fleury, “I’m fine with that because we have a lot of young players, we have a lot of players who are learning a heck of a lot from someone that’s one of the best people in the game and one of the best professionals in the game.

For better or worse, the Bears’ 2022 depth chart remains pretty bare. Of the eight receivers currently on the roster, four have contracts that expire March 16: Allen Robinson, Marquise Goodwin, Damiere Byrd and Jakeem Grant. Three others — Dazz Newsome, Nsimba Webster and Isaiah Coulter — spent all or most of last season on the practice squad.

According to an MLB memorandum found crumpled into a ball in a recyclable bin outside Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., a ghost negotiator would not be physically present in the room during talks, nor would he or she be named. In fact, neither side would know anything about the opposing side’s ghost negotiator except that said negotiator would no longer be living, as dictated by his or her ghost status.

“They were trying to sneak things through us, it was like they think we’re dumb baseball players and we get sleepy after midnight or something,” Stripling said. “It’s like that stupid football quote, they are who we thought they were. They did exactly what we thought they would do. They pushed us to a deadline that they imposed, and then they tried to sneak some shit past us at that deadline and we were ready for it. We’ve been ready for five years.”

“In hindsight, especially with the public profile it would bring me, maybe I would have thought differently about owning a club,” Abramovich was quoted as telling Forbes. “But, at the time, I just saw this incredible game and that I wanted to be a part of that in one way or another.”

“A lot of times, that’s a transition for them as they cut down that move and make their swing just a little bit more compact and more efficient,” Kelly told the Tribune. “And that’s kind of what we’re going for with him, just cut down some of the moves. He’s incredibly athletic, but let’s make it a little more simple and a little more repeatable.”

After the Bears begin to put those pieces into place over the next couple of months, Poles, Eberflus, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko can begin to help Fields build off a bumpy rookie season in which he threw for 1,870 yards, seven touchdowns and 10 interceptions with a 73.2 passer rating.