The Chicago Bears announced the hiring of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron on Tuesday, but they have work to do to fill out their coaching staff.

On Saturday, they named a defensive coordinator in Eric Washington. The former Buffalo Bills assistant head coach and defensive line coach previously coached with the Bears from 2008-10 under Lovie Smith and served as the defensive line coach in 2010 with defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli, a Matt Eberflus mentor.

“He is a great communicator with elite leadership skills and he will enhance our current defensive staff,” Eberflus said of Washington in a statement Saturday. “His track record speaks for itself with coordinator experience as well as expertise in the area of defensive line.”

Eberflus said this month that he was still determining whether he would continue to call plays, as he did for most of the 2023 season after Alan Williams left. But he also said the Bears were “going to keep everything open right now” as they considered candidates.

Here’s how the defensive coordinator hiring process unfolded.

Jan. 26

The Bears are interviewing former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Joe Barry, according to multiple reports.

The rundown: Two days after the Packers fired Barry, he was set to talk with the Bears about their open coordinator position and also was going to interview with the Philadelphia Eagles, The Athletic reported. Barry was the Packers defensive coordinator for three seasons. In 2023, the Packers ranked 17th with 335.1 yards allowed per game and 10th with 20.6 points allowed per game.

Barry also was a defensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions (2007-08) and Washington (2015-16).

He has more than two decades worth of coaching experience and also coached linebackers with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the San Diego Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams. He was the Rams assistant head coach and linebackers coach from 2017-2020.

After firing Barry, Packers coach Matt LaFleur said in a statement, “These decisions are extremely difficult and Joe is one of the best men I’ve had the opportunity to work with in this league.”

Jan. 25

The Bears requested an interview with Buffalo Bills assistant head coach/defensive line coach Eric Washington, CBS Sports reported.

The rundown: Washington has coached the Bills defensive line since 2020, getting promoted to senior defensive assistant in 2022 and assistant head coach in 2023. Before that, he spent nine years with the Carolina Panthers, first as defensive line coach and then as defensive coordinator in 2018-19. He coached three seasons with the Bears, as the defensive line coach in 2010 and a defensive assistant before that. Washington, who played tight end at Grambling State, also coached defensive line in college at Northwestern and Ohio.

Jan. 22

Tennessee Titans assistant head coach/defensive line coach Terrell Williams will interview with the Bears, ESPN reported.

The rundown: Williams has coached for 26 years, including 12 in the NFL. He coached with the Titans for six seasons, adding the assistant head coach title in 2023. Before that, he coached the Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raiders defensive lines for three seasons each. He also coached defensive line at six colleges, including Purdue and Texas A&M. Williams was named the head coach of the American team for this year’s Senior Bowl.

Jan. 21

Titans defensive pass game coordinator Chris Harris will interview with the Bears, NFL Network reported.

The rundown: Harris, a former NFL safety whom the Bears drafted in the sixth round in 2005, has 10 years of coaching experience. With the Titans in 2023, he served as the defensive pass game coordinator and cornerbacks coach. Before that, he coached defensive backs for the Washington Commanders for three seasons, helping them to top-10 defenses in 2020 and 2022. He was the Los Angeles Chargers assistant defensive backs coach for four seasons after starting his coaching career as a Bears defensive quality control coach in 2013-14.

As a player, Harris made 88 starts over eight NFL seasons, including two stints with the Bears in 2005-06 and 2010-11. He played under coach Lovie Smith and started for the 2006 Bears team that went to the Super Bowl.

He interviewed for Jacksonville’s defensive coordinator position, but the Jaguars hired former Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen.

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A new Chicago White Sox ballpark in the South Loop is only a figment of someone’s imagination right now.

But at least the news Wednesday that the Sox are in “serious talks” to build a downtown stadium in the area known as “the 78″ near Clark Street and Roosevelt Road gave us something to talk about besides the Justin Fields-versus-Caleb Williams debate during a down time for our local sports teams.

With no SoxFest on tap and no big-name signings to get fans excited about the season, the leak of the ballpark rumor provided the Sox with front-page news on another cold, dreary day in January.

Nothing wrong with that.

Who doesn’t want to dream of a beautiful new ballpark with a skyline view and surrounding bars and restaurants to go to before and after games? It’s what the Sox should’ve done in the mid-1980s when they held the state hostage for public funding for what was then called new Comiskey Park.

Instead we got an unlovable structure ridiculed by fans for its steep upper deck, a moat separating the field from the bleachers and a lack of entertainment options anywhere near the park. The “Ball Mall” was the popular nickname after it opened in 1991.

“When people came out for that first opening day, they were in awe of the place,” Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf told the Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein in 1999. “But now the stadium is a popular thing to attack. Look, I thought people wanted unobstructed views and wide aisles. I guessed wrong.

“People wanted a more homey feeling. But I really believe that if we had built Camden Yards instead, I would have been massacred. People wanted a modern park.”

Oops.

In a rare mea culpa, Reinsdorf eventually agreed to a series of renovations that included removing eight rows and 6,600 seats from the upper deck and a canopy-style roof to replace the flat one over the 13 highest rows. A sports bar/restaurant was constructed across the street. The moat was filled in with new bleacher seating. The Sox even allowed tailgating.

Once renovated, “The Cell” grew on fans, at least those who didn’t have to sit in the upper deck. It wasn’t as beloved as old Comiskey Park but it was fine. Still, the only time outside opening day that the ballpark was typically filled was when the Sox were in the midst of a winning season or playing the Cubs in the City Series.

Now comes another mea culpa from Reinsdorf — an admission that what’s now called Guaranteed Rate Field is obsolete after only 33 years. Reinsdorf wouldn’t say that, of course, but by making a new ballpark a priority, it’s obvious he “guessed wrong” about the one at 35th Street and Shields Avenue.

After the Sun-Times broke the news about new stadium talks between the Sox and the city, Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Sox released a statement Thursday.

“Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf met to discuss the historic partnership between the team and Chicago and the team’s ideas for remaining competitive in Chicago in perpetuity,” the statement read. “The partnership between the City and the team goes back more than a century and the Johnson administration is committed to continuing this dialogue moving forward.”

The idea the Sox will remain competitive in Chicago “in perpetuity” suggests they are competitive now. Anyone following the team’s downward spiral since the 2022 postseason, including its uninspiring offseason this winter, knows that’s a joke.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume the Sox intend to compete in the near future. Would a ballpark in the South Loop help bring in fans who generally have avoided going to Sox Park over the last couple of decades?

If they build it, will they come?

Only if a new ballpark comes with a new owner.

It goes without saying that Reinsdorf’s popularity among Sox fans is lower than the sewer system under Lower Wacker Drive. But Reinsdorf, who turns 88 in February, said in September that he had no intention of selling the Sox.

“Friends of mine have said, ‘Why don’t you sell? Why don’t you get out?’” he said. “My answer always has been, ‘I like what I’m doing, as bad as it is, and what else would I do?’

“I’m a boring guy. I don’t play golf. I don’t play bridge. And I want to make it better before I go.”

Evidence of Reinsdorf making the Sox better is harder to find than the owner of the gun who fired bullets that hit two fans last summer in the Guaranteed Rate Field bleachers. The payroll is going down, and the organization’s strange infatuation with bringing in former Kansas City Royals personnel has reached a crescendo.

A new South Loop ballpark sounds cool, but it would not be a panacea for the Sox’s attendance problems, just as the new Comiskey Park wasn’t after that new ballpark smell wore off following the first few seasons. Traffic jams on the Kennedy and Dan Ryan expressways won’t make it any easier to get to, and taking the “L” at night is much scarier now than it was prepandemic.

Even in the highly unlikely event the Sox would pay most of the tab, what would happen to the soon-to-be white elephant in Bridgeport that Illinois taxpayers helped pay for? Will the Sox ever explain why they need to leave after all those renovations?

At least the Sox should acknowledge the current ballpark, the last one built before the “retro” parks such as Camden Yards, was an architectural mistake.

“I talk to fans a lot, and they tell me they don’t like the ambience,” Reinsdorf told Greenstein in 1999 during another Sox rebuild. “But what people really want is something better in the uniforms.”

That statement rings true 25 years later.

Maybe the Sox need to work on that before talking about a new ballpark.

()

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Twins pitcher David Festa’s offseason work was focused around two things: developing a curveball — a slower pitch which will provide some contrast to his harder offerings — and finding a lifting routine that would help him recover better.

Both were important for the 24-year-old, who is firmly on the radar after being selected in the 13th round of the 2021 draft. Festa, who is now the Twins’ top pitching prospect and will serve as important rotation depth this year, made his spring debut on Sunday, throwing a scoreless inning in the Twins’ 7-3 loss to the Washington Nationals at Hammond Stadium.

“To get him in a major-league game was important to us and important to him,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “ … Getting that outing, getting through that outing was good. He showed a nice pickoff move, gets a groundball. Little bit of everything today. It’s a nice day to see one of your good young players out there.”

The lanky right-hander looks ticketed to start the year at Triple-A after finishing last year there. He made three starts for the Saints, compiling a 2.92 earned-run average in 12 1/3 innings near the end of the season.

Then, he went to work developing the new breaking ball, which he thinks will help him, particularly against lefties.

“I really don’t have anything that’s slow and depthy to change the hitters’ timing so I’ve been kind of working on that,” he said. “I’ve thrown it in some bullpen (sessions), and it’s just a slow work in progress, but I think it’s something that will help me long term.”

He also started working with a trainer at home in New Jersey that Twins assistant general manager Jeremy Zoll knew, who helped him develop a lifting routine that worked better for his long, lean body type.

Festa said he didn’t necessary recover as well as he would like so lifting with more volume has helped avoid some of the soreness in his legs and arm that he would typically feel.

“I think that’s something that will help me throughout the season because I want to be a guy that can throw 150-200 innings,” he said. “I think lifting with volume will help me out in the future.”

Festa has had an interesting path to this point, pitching sparingly in high school and then diving headfirst into the craft in college. The Twins saw enough while he was there to select him in the back half of the draft out of Seton Hall University.

At that point, he had a fastball in the low 90s. Now, he’s consistently in the mid-90s, a testament, he said, to the coaches in the Twins organization, who now have him knocking on the door of the major leagues.

“My mom wanted me to go play shortstop (at college) but I was like honestly, my bat dwindled away. I think just for giving myself the best chance, I think pitching would be the right idea,” Festa said. “I didn’t imagine it but once you start having some success in college, it starts to become a little bit more of a reality.  … I was lucky enough to get drafted by the Twins.”

Briefly

Pablo López started Sunday’s game and gave up four runs (three earned) in four innings. He allowed five hits and struck out three. … Max Kepler hit his first home run of the spring in the fourth inning. … Chris Paddack will take the mound on Monday when the Twins head north to play the Atlanta Braves. … Baldelli said reliever Caleb Thielbar, dealing with a hamstring strain, is doing “very well.”  “He’s moving into a place where we’re going to see him, and he’s hopefully going to look normal and he can take the mound and do everything he needs to do,” Baldelli said.

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They’ll be playing on the road in upstate New York, and as the lower seed. But a case can be made that the Minnesota Gophers will be the favorites on Saturday afternoon in their quarterfinal NCAA tournament game at No. 4 seed Clarkson of the ECAC, with the winner advancing to the Frozen Four.

For starters, the Gophers (27-9-2), the No. 5 seed, play in the best women’s hockey conference in the nation in the WCHA, and were one fluky goal away from beating eventual conference champion Wisconsin in the semifinals of the WCHA Final Faceoff.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the Gophers and Clarkson (32-4-2) had a common opponent this season in Cornell, which finished fourth in the ECAC. Clarkson lost twice to Cornell, 3-2 in overtime and 3-0, while the Gophers beat Cornell 5-1 in a tournament in Washington, D.C., in November.

“We’re certainly confident in our team and in our abilities,” Gophers coach Brad Frost said. “When we played Cornell, their season had just started a month earlier. Cornell has gone on a pretty good run after we were able to beat them.

“I don’t take a lot of stock in that, in regards to the common opponent thing. It’s going to be up to us to make sure we’re really good in our habits and our structure and playing with confidence as we go in there.”

Frost mentioned last week during the Final Faceoff at Ridder Arena that he would have no qualms about playing on the road in the NCAAs, and he reiterated that point on Sunday after the tournament field was announced.

“The biggest reason is that we’ve had success there,” Frost said. “The first half of the season we were on the road like crazy, and we had pretty good success. We’re a team that really focuses on ourselves, so line matchups and things like that, yeah, they’re all part of it.

“But when you’re on the road you’re just really rolling and just playing.”

A stingy defense was a big reason for Clarkson’s success this season. The Golden Knights allowed only 45 goals in 38 games.

“They’re a very structured and disciplined team,” Frost said. “Goaltending is tremendous. They have a couple of national team ‘D’, one for Canada and one for team USA, and then some skill up front.”

Frost compared their style of play to that of Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State, but said Clarkson has a higher overall skill level.

“I expect a patient game, a lower-scoring game,” he said. “Something where special teams are going to be critically important. They’re going to be hard to score on.”

The Gophers were shocked by the late game-tying goal by Wisconsin in the Final Faceoff matchup and the loss to the Badgers in overtime. But they feel like they can build on the way they competed against the No. 2 team in the nation.

“Obviously you want to win that game,” Frost said, “but then to see Wisconsin go out and beat Ohio State in the championship game, we know those are the top two teams in the country. We can play with them; we know we can do that.”

The Gophers will be without second-line center Madison Kaiser, who will be out for the remainder of the season after sustaining an upper body injury in the loss to Wisconsin.

Looking at the 11-team field, Ohio State is the No. 1 seed despite making the tournament as an at-large team. Wisconsin is the No. 2 seed, with Colgate at No. 3.

Minnesota Duluth will play Connecticut on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio, with the winner playing Ohio State. The Cornell/Stonehill winner will play Colgate and the winner of the game between St. Lawrence and Penn State will face Wisconsin.

The Gophers will be playing for a 16th trip to the Frozen Four after losing to eventual national champion Wisconsin in the semifinals last season.

“It’s certainly a goal of ours every year to be in a position where we make the NCAA tournament,” Frost said. “With not knowing exactly what our team would look like coming into the year, from a, ‘Who’s going to create offense?’ standpoint in particular, there were a lot of unknowns.

“But really happy with our team; how they progressed throughout the year. And certainly the way we’re playing right now.”

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