The Alliance of American Football is taking the football world by storm.
The new spring professional league debuted Saturday night and lived up to the hype.
It’s never going to be the same quality as the NFL, but the early returns show fun and exciting football to help pass the time in the offseason.
The new league has left fans across the country trying to decide where they should pledge their allegiance.
It isn’t easy for Chicago Bears fans to decide, with no teams within 500 miles of Lake Michigan.
The decision really comes down to five main teams relevant to the Bears. The other three — Birmingham Iron, Orlando Apollos and Salt Lake Stallions — have almost no connection to Halas Hall.
Consider this the Bears fans’ guide to hopping on the bandwagon and picking an AAF team to root for.
Arizona Hotshots
In the Alliance of American Football roster building process, every NFL team was assigned an AAF affiliate.
The Bears were assigned to the Arizona Hotshots. So were the Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens.
That didn’t mean every former Bears player automatically went to the Hotshots, but it’s the closest thing to an actual connection with an AAF team.
Assuming the new league continues, it would be most likely that former Bears players would end up with the Arizona franchise.
Other teams have more players with Bears connections right now, but the Hotshots roster has former third-round pick Will Sutton, who last played in Chicago in 2016.
Other players with the Arizona AAF team that spent at least a day with the Bears include wide receiver Rashad Ross, defensive lineman Olubunmi Rotimi and linebacker Nyles Morgan.
Atlanta Legends
The Atlanta Legends don’t have any big-name former Bears players, but they have more players that played for the Bears than any other AAF franchise.
The list of names will challenge your memory of training camp rosters.
Cornerback Doran Grant might be the most memorable of the bunch. A fourth-round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2015, he spent 2017 on the Bears’ practice squad and stood out in the 2018 preseason but never made the active roster.
Undrafted Florida State linebacker Ro’Derrick Hoskins was a late addition to the Bears training camp roster this past year but had little chance of sticking around at a deep position.
Wide receiver Malachi Jones also spent the 2018 preseason with the Bears after dominating the Arena Football League as rookie of the year last summer with 94 catches for 1,439 yards and 36 touchdowns.
Offensive lineman John Kling IV brought the nickname “Kling Kong” to Chicago for his 6-foot-8, 323 pound body. He was an undrafted free agent out of Buffalo who spent his first training camp with the Bears in 2016.
And who could forget long snapper Jeff Overbaugh, who spent seven whole days with the Bears in the preseason of 2017 after Patrick Scales tore his ACL.
All five of them are Legends now.
Memphis Express
The Memphis Express might be the most popular choice among Bears fans purely because of their head coach.
Bears Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary wears the headset for the Express, and his son Matt is the defensive line coach.
“Samurai Mike” is also still the head coach at Trinity Chrsitian Academy in Addison, Texas.
With the Express, he’s coaching only one obscure former Bears player — wide receiver Alton “Pig” Howard, who came to training camp in Bourbonnais back in 2017.
Memphis is headlined by their two top quarterbacks, former Penn State standout Christian Hackenberg, and LSU’s Zach Mettenberger.
San Antonio Commanders
The only other Bears draft pick on an AAF roster is former tight end Evan Rodriguez, who plays for Mike Riley and the San Antonio Commanders.
He’s come a long way since Phil Emery drafted him the fourth round in 2012, and he’s still trying to get back into the NFL like everyone else in the AAF.
The Commanders also have running back David Cobb and offensive lineman Cyril Richardson, who were both practice squad players for the Bears in 2016 and spent part of the 2017 offseason in Chicago.
Wide receiver Demarcus Ayers and defensive back Nick Orr both spent this past preseason with the Bears and are now with San Antonio.
One of the other few AAF players who actually played a regular season game for the Bears is Commanders cornerback De’Vante Bausby, a training camp standout in 2016 that played on the active roster that year.
San Diego Fleet
The other team with a head coach connected to the Bears is the San Diego Fleet, led by Mike Martz.
Martz is best known as the former head coach of the St. Louis Rams, but he was the offensive coordinator in Chicago in 2010 and 2011, leading the Bears to the NFC Championship Game.
He helped produce some of Jay Cutler’s best seasons, while also letting him get sacked an NFL-high 52 times in 2010.
Martz resigned from Chicago after the 2011 season and hasn’t coached in the NFL since.
His offensive coordinator on the Fleet is Mike DeBord, who was the tight ends coach with him on the Bears.
The only former Bears player on the San Diego roster is punter Ryan Winslow, who lost the training camp competition with Pat O’Donnell this past August.
