Bears

Drew Dalman suddenly elected to retire this offseason after just one season as the Bears’ starting center, in only his fifth NFL season. Chicago HC Ben Johnson reflected on Dalman’s decision, saying there was some desire to talk him out of retirement. 

“I think selfishly, myself, the organization, Ryan (Poles), his teammates – we all want him back,” Johnson said, via CHGO. “He made us better last year. The success we had on offense was really started because of him. There’s naturally that selfish desire – ‘No, no, no, I want to change his mind.’ But that’s not why we do what we do, also. We have to do what’s right for the team and the organization but it’s also really important that his concerns are taken care of. You could tell pretty quickly that he’s a smart guy. This was not a rash decision. I think out of respect to him, I had pretty good confidence this was the direction that was going to go.”

• Miami C James Brockermeyer will take a 30 visit with the Bears. (Tom Pelissero)

Packers

The Packers signed HC Matt LaFleur to a contract extension after there was some chatter about potentially firing him. Green Bay president Ed Policy highly praised LaFleur’s ability as a teacher and has been impressed with his work with their quarterbacks over the years. 

“Just drawing on the seven years that I’ve known him, drawing on the process that we went through in bringing him here and my conversations with Mark (former Packers president Mark Murphy), when Mark chose to hire him and then over those seven years … Matt is a teacher. He’s a natural at it. His parents were both teachers,” Policy said, via Matt Schneidman of The Athletic. “Just watching him develop players as individuals and then, more importantly, develop those individuals into teams over the last seven years, I’ve been very impressed with him in particular at the quarterback position. You guys were all here when he was getting, I’d say, the very best out of Aaron Rodgers, and he did a tremendous job of developing Jordan (Love) and then look what he did with Malik (Willis) over the past couple of years. That, coupled with the locker room supports him, from Jordan to the rest of the locker room. You guys have probably all had a chance to talk to many of those guys. They support him openly and they support him behind closed doors. I think he’s the winningest — you guys can correct me if I’m wrong — in his time in the league as a head coach, I think he’s the winningest NFC coach and I think the third-winningest coach in the NFL in those seven years. Frankly, the fact that I was being asked, is firing him even an option at that point? I was a little bit shocked by that.”

Policy said he decided to re-sign LaFleur before their playoff loss to the Bears.

“I appreciate it and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Policy said. “I mean, the second half of that Chicago game was very disappointing. We were all extremely frustrated. I know the fans are frustrated, and I wouldn’t want them not to be frustrated. They’re very passionate about our team, about our games and about the outcome of our games. I wouldn’t change that, and I did hear quite a bit of it. I can’t let that factor into these types of decisions. Ultimately, does it impact me? Yes. Do I hear it? Yes. These are not decisions that should necessarily be made by fans after a very disappointing loss.”

Vikings

Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell fielded several questions at the league owners’ meetings about the re-signing of veteran QB Carson Wentz, who started five games for Minnesota before being lost due to a shoulder injury.

“I just think it’s about depth,” O’Connell said, via Pro Football Talk. “It’s about the fact that, without too much of a rearview-mirror-looking backward, you see where the final standings were; where we were at 9-8 and ultimately maybe the one or two or three plays or sequences of games where you find your way into the dance, and that’s really all you ever want at the beginning of every year is to punch your ticket to compete in that one game to continue moving on. We’ve played three guys in one year. We’ve played four in another. We just feel like having the ability to get quality quarterback play throughout the circumstances we do not control throughout the season gives our team pretty historic data that says if we get quarterback play to a certain line, we win a lot of football games. So we wanted to ensure we are able to do that, but also make it a very, very competitive room and that’s regardless of who’s taking reps with what group. We want the quarterback position to elevate our team, and with the talent we have around that position, we feel pretty good about it also working vice versa the other way around.”

“We wanted to be patient and allow Carson to see what opportunities might be out there, but at the same time, Carson knew very on early in offseason, regardless what other moves or move we made in that room, that we wanted him back,” O’Connell added. “He loved being in Minnesota. He loves our fan base. He loves getting to wear the purple and gold. I know for some people it might be a, ‘Why would Carson do that?’ I think some people are discounting the fact that he’s really enjoyed his time not only being around [quarterbacks coach] Josh [McCown] and his teammates but being a Minnesota Viking. It’s an important thing to me to always know that it’s a place that guys want to come play whether they have previous experience with us, but there’s a desire and an enthusiasm about playing quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings.”

O’Connell was asked if Wentz would compete for the starting job with former Golden Gopher Max Brosmer, struggling third-year QB J.J. McCarthy, and incoming former first overall pick Kyler Murray.

“Knowing that we feel comfortable and confident about the depth of our quarterback room, we want to prepare all of those guys to be able to take snaps and contribute to winning when called upon,” O’Connell responded. “What that looks like, we’ll see. I see a lot of ways that we’ll be able to continue the evolution and evolve our offense here in Year 5, but at the same time, principles I believe Kyler will be able to not only make his own but provide different layers to what we do with some of his experiences, and the same goes for J.J. and Carson and Max (Bromer) as far as guys who now all have experience in our system, and that’s one of the benefits as we’ve seen before of playing multiple guys in a tough year for the quarterback position just from a pure health standpoint, which is what last year, so now we feel really good about the combination, depth, talent and the fact that we’ve got a room that’s going to push each and all of those guys are going to have great offseasons and be ready to rock and roll.”