One of the great trends in the movie business is to release perplexing teasers about something coming in the future, within a movie or in advance of it.
The Bears apparently are going Hollywood.
The team released a video Friday that had Bears fans abuzz on social media.
Abuzz probably doesn’t do it justice. There hasn’t been this much talk about a video over the Bears since Matthew McConaughey and his weird Super Bowl preview video dressed as Mike Ditka.
The video in question shows great players in the recent Bears past with “Leave your legacy,” as the theme.
The reason for the buzz is the first player it shows. Out of all the players who have come through Halas Hall, like Hall of Famers Brian Urlacher and Julius Peppers or cornerback Charles Tillman, the video starts out with one Khalil Mack wrecking things in 2018.
It has several highlights of Mack’s within the video. Actually there are four. No one else has more highlights in it.
Of course, the reason everyone is speculating about this is coming free agency and the possibility Mack could return to the Bears.
It was reported by ESPN and by WSCR-AM 670 beat reporter Chris Emma that there could be interest on Mack’s part in returning to Chicago.
More on all of this will not be known until Monday at 11 a.m. when the NFL free agent “legal tampering” period begins.
It’s when there are immediate and constant announcements about teams agreeing to terms with players who they weren’t supposed to have contact with until Monday at 11 a.m. How things happen so quickly if they can’t talk until then is a real mystery.
Conspiracy theories aside, the appearance of Mack so prominently and so often in his video when they could have chosen any number of great players is perplexing.
Fans and media members speculated via social media that it’s a teaser, a sign of the second coming of Khalil Mack.
Perhaps it’s the team communicating a message to him about “coming home.”
It also could be merely an attempt to keep the Bears front and center in his mind, to remind him of how it was at its best for that one season and how it can be that way again.
This would all be directed at convincing him to return.
It’s a potential legacy unfulfilled but a rising team headed for eventual elite NFL status could interest a 34-year-old edge rusher who is hoping to find a way to a Super Bowl.
Mack may not be the player he was at 28 or 30 or even in 2023 when he had a career-high 17 1/2 sacks for the Chargers, but he did some impressive things in Chicago and it’s awfully unusual to see him prominently and perhaps conveniently featured on a team video a few days before free agency.
