Mack has Bears feeling pumped
‘I’ve always thought of myself as the best defensive player in the league’
CHICAGO — It’s easy to imagine Chicago Bears fans, if given the same seat, having the same reaction as Sandy Mack Sr., the father of the team’s newest and best pass rusher, Khalil Mack.
As his son humbly introduced himself to the city and the franchise’s followers, just hours after putting his signature on a six-year, $141 million extension that guarantees him $90 million, Sandy Mack, wearing a gray Mack Trucks ballcap, sat in the corner of the Halas Hall media room next to his wife, Yolanda, and occasionally pumped his right fist.
“You could say a lot of different things, but until I go out there and play, I’m not a big talker,” Khalil Mack said. “I like to go out and use my actions to speak, you know, and when I get out there and get on the field, you can probably sense what’s going to happen.” Fist pump. “I’ve always thought of myself as the best defensive player in the league and I want to play like the best defensive player in the league,” he said. “I want to be the best at what I do, and that’s just me. That’s what comes with Mack. Good response?”
Fist pump as the younger Mack looked over at his father.
A fan base starved to cheer on a winner is just as enthusiastic. Mack is already towering over expressways on digital billboards. The team is selling his No. 52 jerseys. Optimism that has been running high since a frenzied shopping spree in free agency led into a draft in which the Bears added linebacker Roquan Smith and wide receiver Anthony Miller, players that should make contributions from the start, is bubbling over.
General manager Ryan Pace boiled down the essential parts of the trade and the implications for the team’s drafts in the next two years. In his view, the Bears are swapping their 2019 first-round pick for Mack and the team already traded its 2019 second-rounder to draft Miller this year. The Bears swapped their 2020 firstrounder to the Raiders and received the Raiders’ second-rounder that year in re- New Chicago pass rusher Khalil Mack holds up a jersey during a news conference Sunday. He was acquired from the Raiders on Saturday. turn, a deal Pace was thrilled to make for a premier edge defender.
Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie said Saturday night that Oakland worked to negotiate with teams that would ideally return the highest pick possible in 2019. So, obviously the Raiders view the Bears as less competitive than at least the other teams most interested in acquiring Mack.
That has done nothing to quell playoff talk surrounding a team that has finished in the basement of the NFC North for four consecutive seasons. Pace and coach Matt Nagy may be thinking it, but they certainly didn’t verbalize that Sunday.
“I just don’t think it’s fair to go there,” Nagy said. “We’re not, inside the building, going to put any expectations as to what we need to do. Before this happened, and I think you guys will agree with this, our goal from the start has been to win the Super Bowl. Now, there’s ways to get to that, and if our goal is not that, then we’re not in this for the right reason. Does this help us? Yeah, obviously it helps you, but how are we going to get to that point? There’s so many variables.”
If you read between the lines the last few weeks, Nagy has done his best to temper expectations for an offense that will just be settling into a new scheme with a secondyear quarterback in Mitch Trubisky that the team is sky high on. The team that lines up Sunday night against the Packers at Lambeau Field will no doubt look different in November and December.
Sure, the Bears could be making their first postseason push since 2010 in the final two months of the season. But we don’t know what twists and turns lie ahead, and Pace, fresh off a contract extension in January, and Nagy, entering Year 1 of a five-year contract, aren’t ready to put grand expectations on the 2018 season.
“You can live in a pretty small world up here and that’s what we all strive to do,” Pace said. “I’ve been pretty much underground the last 48 hours. I hope that everyone’s excited, our fan base is excited. I know our organization is excited, and not just football, the whole building. ... But I don’t have a good feel for the outside world right now.”
The outside world - the land that exists outside of the tree line at 1000 Football Dr. in Lake Forest - has skyrocketing expectations. Right now, all the Bears will say is they’re going to do everything possible to get Mack up to speed to suit up against the Packers.
“I can’t be here for long,” Mack said. “I’ve got to go talk to the coaches. I’ve got to go — I had a playbook in my hand for like two seconds. That’s the most exciting part for me and I’m looking forward to it, especially. That’s going to be right after this. Cool. Perfect.”
Fist pump.