Ledarius Mack was sitting in Buffalo, N.Y., hotel room two years ago Tuesday, waiting for another college preseason practice to start, when he saw the news crawl along the bottom of the ESPN screen.
His brother Khalil had been traded to the Bears. He had to call his mom to confirm it.
“I didn’t know how to feel at that point,” he said. “I was like, ‘Dang, wow.’”
He didn’t know then that his brother — and the Bears — would two years later provide his best shot at an NFL career. The Bears signed the Buffalo outside linebacker as a rookie free agent moments after this year’s draft ended.