12 Mar 2024

Chicago Bears announce the hiring of Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator

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Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles and coach Matt Eberflus are working on revamping their coaching staff.

After firing five coaches earlier this month, including offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, the Bears began the offseason seeking at least new offensive and defensive coordinators and position coaches for the quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs.

On Tuesday, the Bears officially announced the hiring of former Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator. A deal had been reported Monday to be in the works.

“This was a very exhaustive search, but in the end I’m grateful the journey led us to Shane,” Eberflus said in a statement. “He is a great teacher and communicator with a diverse coaching background among some of the game’s most elite head coaches. I look forward to partnering with him as we build out the rest of the staff and get him started here.”

Waldron said in a statement: “I appreciate this opportunity given to me by Coach Eberflus and Ryan Pole. We can’t wait to get to work at a franchise with such a storied history and passionate fan base.”

Here’s how the offensive coordinator hiring process unfolded.

Jan. 18

The Bears are expected to interview former Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury, ESPN reported.

The rundown: Kingsbury, 44, spent this past season as a senior offensive analyst and quarterbacks coach at USC, where potential No. 1 draft pick Caleb Williams played. The Bears are getting deeper into their evaluations of Williams as they determine whether to draft a quarterback with the No. 1 pick this spring. Williams threw for 3,633 yards with 30 touchdowns and five interceptions in 12 games in 2023.

In four seasons as the Cardinals coach, Kingsbury was 28-37-1. The Cardinals fired him last January following a 4-13 season after the team made the playoffs a year earlier behind quarterback Kyler Murray. Before that, Kingsbury was the head coach for six seasons at Texas Tech, where he coached quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

He also was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Texas A&M and Houston. Kingsbury played quarterback at Texas Tech and in the NFL, NFL Europe and CFL.

The Bears are interviewing Los Angeles Rams passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Zac Robinson, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reported.

The rundown: Robinson, 37, has been part of Sean McVay’s coaching staff in Los Angeles for the last five seasons and in his current role the last two years. In 2021, Robinson also served as Matthew Stafford’s quarterbacks coach as Stafford matched a career high with 41 touchdown passes and led the Rams to a Super Bowl title.

This season Robinson contributed to a passing offense that ranked in the top 10 in yards and yards per play.

Robinson was a standout quarterback at Oklahoma State and a seventh-round selection by the New England Patriots in 2010. He spent four seasons in the NFL with the Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals.

The Bears have requested an interview with Philadelphia Eagles senior offensive assistant Marcus Brady, ESPN reported.

The rundown: Brady, 44, spent the 2023 season on Nick Sirianni’s Eagles staff after five seasons with the Indianapolis Colts.

He worked on the same Colts coaching staff as Bears coach Matt Eberflus for four years under Frank Reich, though on the opposite side of the ball from Eberflus. With the Colts, Brady rose from assistant quarterbacks coach (2018) to quarterbacks coach (2019-20) and then to offensive coordinator (2021-22) after Sirianni left for the Eagles. The Colts offense was one of the best in the league at running the ball in 2021, but it ranked 27th in total yards per game with 311.6 in 2022.

Brady also spent nine seasons coaching in the Canadian Football League.

Jan. 17

The Bears are interviewing Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Thomas Brown, The Athletic reported.

The rundown: Brown, 37, completed his first year as the Panthers coordinator after three seasons with the Rams, with whom he won a Super Bowl under McVay.

The Panthers struggled behind rookie quarterback Bryce Young in 2023, averaging a league-worst 265.3 yards per game. With the Rams, Brown coached running backs and then tight ends and had the title of assistant head coach in his last two seasons.

The former Georgia running back was a running backs coach in college for eight seasons, including with Wisconsin, Georgia, South Carolina and Miami, where he also was the offensive coordinator. Brown also is scheduled to interview with the Tennessee Titans for their head coaching position.

Jan. 15

The Bears interviewed former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman, NFL Network’s Peter Schrager reported.

The rundown: Roman, 51, is a longtime NFL coach who served as offensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, Buffalo Bills and Ravens. Among his accomplishments is crafting the Ravens offense around dual-threat quarterback Lamar Jackson and helping Jackson to an MVP season in his second year in 2019. The Ravens had the best rushing offense in the league that year.

However, Roman and the Ravens parted after the 2022 season after the offense declined. The Ravens went from averaging 33.2 points in 2019 to 20.6 in 2022.

Jan. 12

The Bears interviewed Seahawks quarterbacks coach Greg Olson, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The rundown: Olson, 60, has been a college and NFL quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator since 1990. He has extensive experience as an NFL offensive coordinator, holding the position with the Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, St. Louis Rams, Oakland and Las Vegas Raiders in separate stints and Jacksonville Jaguars.

He most recently was the Seahawks quarterbacks coach in 2023 and a senior offensive assistant with the Los Angeles Rams in 2022. Olson spent the 2003 season as the Bears quarterbacks coach.

The Bears planned to interview Kentucky offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Liam Coen, CBS Sports reported.

The rundown: Coen, 38, has one season of NFL offensive coordinator experience with the Rams in 2022, though McVay called the plays. He was an assistant wide receivers coach and assistant quarterbacks coach with the Rams from 2018-20.

Beyond that, Coen has been a college quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator since 2010 at Brown, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine and most recently Kentucky in 2021 and 2023.

Jan. 11

The Bears planned to interview 49ers passing game coordinator Klint Kubiak, ESPN reported.

The rundown: Kubiak, 36, is in his first season with the 49ers under Kyle Shanahan. Before that, he was the Denver Broncos passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2022 for Russell Wilson and their QBs coach from 2016-18.

Kubiak, the son of longtime NFL coach Gary Kubiak, also worked for the Minnesota Vikings as offensive coordinator in 2021 and quarterbacks coach from 2019-20, working with Kirk Cousins.

Jan. 10

The Bears requested an interview with Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, NFL Network reported.

The rundown: Waldron, 44, was the Seahawks offensive coordinator the last three seasons, helping quarterback Geno Smith to a comeback season in 2022. Before that, he spent four seasons with the Rams as passing game coordinator, quarterbacks coach and tight ends coach under McVay.

He also served as an offensive assistant with the Patriots (2008-09) and Washington (2016) and worked in operations with the Patriots early in his career. He has coached in college, high school and the UFL.

More Bears news

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Bears GM Ryan Poles staying ‘open-minded’ as he evaluates whether to keep Justin Fields or draft a QB at No. 1
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12 Mar 2024

Trump supporters submit petitions to recall Wisconsin Assembly speaker

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MADISON, Wis. — Supporters of former President Donald Trump submitted petitions on Monday seeking to force a recall election targeting Wisconsin’s top elected Republican, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who angered them when he refused to impeach the official who oversees the battleground state’s elections.

Whether there are enough valid signatures to trigger a recall election this spring will be up to the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission to determine. Vos has vowed to fight the validity of the signatures and any commission decision can be appealed in court.

As the most powerful Republican in the GOP-led Legislature, Vos drives the party’s agenda in the Statehouse and beyond. He was first elected in 2004 and is the longest-serving Assembly speaker in state history, holding the post since 2013.

Vos angered Trump and his supporters in Wisconsin by refusing calls to decertify President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state in 2020. Biden’s win of about 21,000 votes has withstood two partial recounts, numerous lawsuits, an independent audit and a review by a conservative law firm. Vos further angered Trump supporters when he did not back a plan to impeach Meagan Wolfe, the state’s top elections official.

Wolfe has been a target of those who falsely believe that Trump won Wisconsin in 2020.

Vos has repeatedly said he was not in favor of impeaching Wolfe because there was not enough support among fellow Republicans to do so. He has said he wants to see Wolfe replaced, but a judge last year blocked the Legislature from taking steps to remove her.

Vos said he had no comment until after he had a chance to review the signatures. On Sunday, Vos called into question the validity of the signatures collected and the motives of the circulators.

“It’s truly sad that a group of people who didn’t get their way in the 2020 election are wasting resources and effort working with Democrats to settle a political score rather than better using their time to defeat our ineffective Democrat President,” Vos said in a statement.

Petition organizer Matthew Snorek, who is from the southeastern Wisconsin town of Burlington and owns an extermination business, said he was motivated to recall Vos because he didn’t move to impeach Wolfe and because he thinks Vos has failed to make elections more secure. He also threatened to mount recall efforts against other Republican lawmakers who block Wolfe’s impeachment.

“Fail to serve the people and you could be next,” Snorek said.

The recall petition quoted Vos’ comments from 2022 that he would “try as hard as I can to make sure Donald Trump is not the nominee.” Vos has also said that he would vote for whomever the Republican nominee is in a rematch with Biden.

Snorek said he submitted nearly 11,000 signatures, well above the roughly 6,850 signatures required to force a recall election. Vos said he has assembled a team to review every single one. Wisconsin Elections Commission staff were also immediately reviewing the signatures, with a report on their findings expected later Monday or early Tuesday. The commission planned a Tuesday meeting to discuss the recall.

A major unresolved question is which legislative district boundaries would be in effect for a recall election, if one happens.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court declined Friday to take up Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ request to clarify whether Wisconsin’s newly approved legislative district maps apply to elections before November, leaving uncertainty about whether signatures for the recall attempt should be collected in Vos’ new district.

Snorek said Monday that he believes all of the signatures collected were from voters who live in the district Vos was elected to represent, not the one under the newly adopted maps.

The commission has 31 days to determine if the petition has enough valid signatures, which can be appealed in court. If a petition is determined to be sufficient, a recall election must be called for six weeks later.

That means if there is a recall election for Vos, it would most likely take place between late April and late May.

Vos has 10 days to challenge signatures that were collected. He can challenge on a variety of grounds, including that a person signed more than once, signed someone else’s name or doesn’t live in the legislative district. He can also challenge if he believes the person circulating the petition misled the signer about its intent or if a signature was not collected during the allowable circulation period.

Snorek said given that the recall effort submitted more than 4,000 signatures above the minimum required, he is confident it will succeed.

If the recall effort fails, Snorek said he would consider supporting a Republican challenger to Vos in the August primary.

Vos faced a primary challenge in 2022 from Adam Steen, who was backed by Trump and argued that Vos hadn’t done enough to overturn the 2020 election results. Vos won the primary by a mere 260 votes before cruising in the general election, winning with 73% of the vote.

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12 Mar 2024

Court upholds rejection of substitute teaching license for ex-officer who killed Philando Castile

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A Minnesota board was justified when it rejected a substitute teaching license for a former police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in 2016, an appeals court ruled Monday.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed the findings of the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board, which concluded Jeronimo Yanez did not meet the moral standards required to teach in public schools.

The court had sent the case back to the licensing board in 2022 to reconsider its initial rejection of Yanez’s teaching license application, which was based on “immoral character or conduct.” The court said that reason was unconstitutionally vague and ordered the board to focus narrowly on whether Yanez’s conduct made him unfit to teach.

The board then conducted further proceedings and denied his application a second time.

Yanez, a former St. Anthony police officer, shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop after Castile volunteered that he had a gun. Authorities later discovered that Castile, a 32-year-old St. Paul elementary school cafeteria worker, had a permit for the firearm. The case got widespread attention after Castile’s girlfriend, who was in the car with her young daughter, began livestreaming the shooting’s aftermath on Facebook.

Yanez was acquitted of manslaughter. Castile’s death — which preceded the killing of George Floyd, a Black man whose death at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on race — also led to massive public outcry and protests in Minnesota and beyond. Yanez quit law enforcement after his trial and eventually began teaching Spanish part-time at a parochial school.

In reconsidering Yanez’s license application, the board concluded Yanez racially profiled Castile when he stopped him, thinking he might be a robbery suspect, and said his decision to fire seven shots into the car not only killed Castile but endangered the lives of his girlfriend and her daughter.

The board found that those actions ran contrary to provisions of the ethics code for Minnesota teachers on nondiscrimination, exercising disciplinary authority and protecting students from harm.

On Monday, the appeals court said the board followed the proper legal standards this time and made its decision based on extensive evidence. Experts who testified included Joseph Gothard, superintendent of St. Paul Public Schools, who asserted Yanez’s prejudgments of Castile indicated bias and microaggressions that would be detrimental to students, especially students of color.

A sign honoring Philando Castile displayed at the George Floyd memorial April 20, 2021, in Minneapolis. (Nick Ferraro / Pioneer Press)

“Dr. Gothard questioned Yanez’s ability to meet the ethical demands for a diverse student population and opined that Yanez’s presence as a teacher in a Minnesota classroom poses a risk of retraumatizing students, staff, and families,” the appeals court noted.

Yanez’s attorney, Robert Fowler, said the board lacks any expertise on policing issues to draw any conclusions on whether Yanez should be allowed to teach.

“The licensing board cherry picked its findings to make biased conclusions,” Fowler said in an email. “Unfortunately, the court was not willing to take up these difficult political issues and instead just rubber stamped the agency’s decision. This whole case is further proof that issues surrounding police are not able to be decided in a fair and unbiased manner.”

The attorney said Yanez continues to teach at the parochial school.

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12 Mar 2024

Yoán Moncada aims for a healthy 2024 after back issues led to 2 IL trips last season for Chicago White Sox 3B

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Yoán Moncada pulled a double into the right-field corner during the second inning of an April 2 game against the Houston Astros last season at Minute Maid Park.

The Chicago White Sox third baseman doubled again — this time pulling a grounder that just stayed fair down the first-base line — in the sixth inning. Batting left-handed again, the switch-hitter capped the day by going the other way with a two-run home run to left field in the ninth.

Moncada had a strong start to the season, going 8-for-18 (.444) with two homers and four RBIs in the series against the Astros as he built off his All-Tournament Team performance for Cuba during the World Baseball Classic. Then came the back issues that led to two trips to the injured list.

“During the first half of that season, it was painful, stressful,” Moncada said through an interpreter Thursday at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago in Bridgeport. “I couldn’t do anything. I wanted to do stuff and help the team but I couldn’t. It was a really tough time for me.”

He was out from April 11-May 12 with lower back soreness and again June 14-July 25 with lower back inflammation.

Moncada rebounded after returning from the second IL stint, slashing .280/.323/.430 with two home runs and 12 RBIs in August and .298/.344/.560 with six home runs and 12 RBIs in September.

“Once I started getting better and stronger, I felt much better and I felt good,” Moncada said. “That was why I was able to finish the way that I did and that’s how I feel right now.”

The 28-year-old is aiming to use that late-season bounce back as a springboard for 2024.

“He feels great, the back feels great, he’s motivated,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “He’s going to get to spring training early on the 31st of January or first of February, which is a great sign and he’s going to put himself in a position to have a great year. We need Moncada.

“He’s motivated to having a full season under his belt, which is good for him.”

Moncada slashed .260/.305/.425 with 11 home runs and 40 RBIs in 2023. After appearing in 144 games in 2021, Moncada played 104 games in 2022 and 92 in 2023.

His offseason work has included strengthening his abs, back and legs to “get all that core really strong,” he said.

“The way I’m preparing myself for this coming season is to play 202 games,” Moncada said, when asked about attempting to play as close to 162 games as possible. “That’s an exaggeration, but that’s how I’m preparing myself.

“I want to be healthy. I want to be on the field every day.”

Moncada said he is motivated and excited because he’s healthy.

“That’s the only thing I want — if I’m healthy, I know I can do a lot of good things in the field,” Moncada said. “I’m excited right now to get to spring training and start working.

“I think God has saved something good for me. Hopefully we are going to see that. Hopefully I’ll be able to be healthy and really show and really display all I can do on the field.”

Moncada’s best season was in 2019, when he established career highs in several categories, including OPS (.915), doubles (34), home runs (25) and RBIs (79). He signed a five-year, $70 million extension in March 2020 — a deal in which the Sox hold an option for $25 million in 2025 with a $5 million buyout.

The solid defensive third baseman knows he’ll be fielding questions from reporters about the future.

“I would love to stay with the White Sox if they want me here,” Moncada said. “I’m very thankful for the White Sox for the opportunity they have given me after I was traded from the Red Sox (in December 2016). They’ve been treating me very well. I like the organization, I like the city, I like the fans. I would like to stay here.”

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