MIAMI (WBBM Newsradio) -- Here are the news and notes from the Super Bowl festivities of Thursday.
-- When I met Lane Tech graduate Laken Tomlinson, he was at the NFL Combine in 2015. The Lions ended up taking him at No. 28 overall in the first round. It's something that he never could've believed as an eight-year-old growing up in Jamaica.
-- A move to Rogers Park changed Tomlinson's future. Despite long commutes and surviving a rough neighborhood, Tomlinson found the game at Lane Tech, where he earned scholarship offers from Northwestern and Duke, choosing to attend the latter. He will start at guard for the 49ers in the Super Bowl on Sunday. "I always liked football," Tomlinson said. "I just never had the knowledge that everybody had growing up. I always liked hitting people. I always liked working together as a team ... the discipline it taught me. I was a novice to the game."
-- One of the biggest thrills of Tomlinson's move to the 49ers after the Lions traded him in 2017 was meeting former Bears kicker Robbie Gould. "Getting to meet him for the first time, that was actually ... a super cool deal," Tomlinson said. "Here's a guy that I've watched over the years growing up and I had the opportunity to play next to a great player ... I was just like, 'This is unreal.'"
-- Long ago, Tomlinson decided medicine would be his post-football career. His goal is to work in neurology. A Duke graduate, he shadowed a neurosurgeon for 18 months who also was a football player. It piqued Tomlinson's interest. "Being around him definitely gave me the confidence that I can do the football thing and I can still do this down the road," Tomlinson said.
-- I spent the day on Radio Row and found current and former Bears to talk to. Receiver Allen Robinson is in Miami representing the Bears as their Walter Payton NFL Man Of The Year nominee. He started his offseason training in New York and will eventually shift to south Florida.
-- Robinson is actively growing his foundation, which focuses on increasing educational opportunities for young people in Chicago through the Boys & Girls Clubs. He's trying to lay down deep roots in the city as he continues his Bears career.
-- Entering a contract year, Robinson has long maintained his desire to remain a Bear and retire a Bear. The expectation is that he's in line for an extension, but all is quiet on that front at the moment. "It can be a process," Robinson said. "I am not discouraged at all. It's never anything personal or anything like that. I know there is a lot of things the Bears have to crunch out and figure out on their own. It takes a process and I do understand that."
-- Robinson is optimistic the Bears can fix an offense that struggled in 2019. "This is a solution-based organization," Robinson said. "We had a down year. We didn't have the year that we wanted, but we finished 8-8."
-- Robinson feels the season could have gone a few different ways if the Bears played slightly better to win games against the Raiders and Chargers. "I don't necessarily think we were too far off," Robinson said. "It wasn't pretty, but it's not always going to be pretty. I don't think we were far off at all. I think we were just a few little details and nuances away from really breaking through as a team and being able to play true complementary football."
-- I ran into new Washington Redskins coach Ron Rivera, who's excited about his new opportunity. He's taking on another young quarterback in Dwayne Haskins -- just like he did in his first year in Carolina in 2011, when the Panthers drafted Cam Newton at No. 1 overall. "Cam had a great rookie year, a good second year, his third year was awesome and by his fifth season he was the league MVP," Rivera said. "To me, it's just about patience. Again, three full years as our starter is what Cam got, and we saw by his third year, we saw the emergence of the type of player he could be." That's food for thought as Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky gets ready for his third year in coach Matt Nagy's offense.
-- Rivera believes in Nagy and not just because they're products of Andy Reid's coaching tree. "Tell everybody to take a breath," Rivera said. "Here we go. Now we're into the third season. Now we see it all come together. I believe it will because there are a lot of good football players on that football team."
-- After the first quarter the Super Bowl this Sunday, former Bears left tackle Jimbo Covert will join his 2020 classmates and be introduced as Hall of Famers. Two weeks after his election, it's starting to settle in that he finally earned a coveted seat among the best to ever play the game. "It's been such a great experience," Covert said. "It's been pretty cool."
Jeff Joniak is the play-by-play announcer for the Bears broadcasts on WBBM Newsradio 780 & 105.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter @JeffJoniak.
