NFL Network’s Stacey Dales Talks Bears, Caitlin Clark & More

Stacey Dales came into the studio ready to talk football. Seth Rollins, sitting in Rich's chair, had a much narrower request.

"Can we talk Bears?" Rollins asked. "Tell me about the Chicago Bears. Put it in my bloodstream."

Dales obliged, and started where every Chicago conversation starts now. "It all starts with Caleb and Ben," Dales said, calling Caleb Williams "so special" and describing what Ben Johnson did with him last season as extraordinary. The growth ran from week one all the way to the playoff loss against the Rams. "This team could have been in the NFC Championship."

The specific improvement Dales pointed to was not arm talent. It was footwork. Williams is finally marrying his drops to the concepts Johnson is calling, whether it is three steps or five, out of a bunch formation or 12 and 13 personnel. "That processing ability and the footwork matching to it is where Caleb has made really substantial improvements," Dales said. The Superman stuff is still there when it is needed. The plumbing underneath it is what changed.

What Dales wants next is what she called the chain game. She brought up Josh Allen, who she said had 39 total touchdowns last season, a ton of them on the ground, and the image that sticks with her is Allen launching a prayer downfield in a playoff loss. Then she brought up Matthew Stafford throwing an outside toe-tapper to Davante Adams against the Bears at Soldier Field. "That is a standard perfect throw." Get to that level, Dales argued, and you are playing in a conference championship game. She also had a shorter path in mind: "Check that down to Luther in space. Luther Burden's a dog, man."

There was a sleeper team draft to review first, and Dales was polite about most of it. She liked the Dolphins pick, singling out Kadyn Proctor as her favorite offensive lineman coming out at 6-7 and 350 pounds, plus Malik Willis, Devon Achane, and a defense being assembled under Jeff Hafley. Tennessee and New Orleans got a longer pause. "Are you a Tyler Shuckert?" she asked, which is its own kind of review.

Training camp is what she is actually hungry for, and specifically quarterback competitions. In Minnesota she thinks Kyler Murray ends up the starter, brought in on a one-year deal for a reason, on a team that led the league with 30 giveaways and watched Justin Jefferson post career lows across the board. Whoever builds chemistry with Jefferson fastest wins the job. In Atlanta it is Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa under Kevin Stefanski. In Cleveland, where Dales counted 13 starting quarterbacks since 2020, she floated Deshaun Watson as a comeback player of the year candidate coming off back-to-back Achilles ruptures to the same foot.

Then the conversation turned to the WNBA, where Caitlin Clark picked up her seventh technical and sits one away from a suspension. The offense, per Dales, was the word "scoreboard" after Clark had 27 points. Her verdict was not on Clark's temper. It was on the infrastructure. Officials should be full-time salaried employees. The league needs a replay center like the NBA runs in Secaucus. The messaging after controversial moments needs to be faster.

"The officials are not bad. They're not bad people," Dales said. "But in order to have more consistency, you have to invest more."