Next Up for Dazz Newsome Is Real Competition

Wide receiver will likely be the most heated competition in Bears training camp but rookie slot receiver Dazz Newsome hardly seems the type to back down from it.

A few days of work in Chicago in an NFL offense hardly opened the eyes of Bears wide receiver Dazz Newsome.

Something else did, though: There are no Waffle Houses in Chicago.

"I thought Waffle House was global. Where do you go when it's 24 hours and you all want food at 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning?" said Newsome, a sixth-round pick from North Carolina.

Not much else in football or even the world seems like it's going to get the best of the gregarious Newsome. He's been around football too long to really be worried by a new offense in a new city, and maybe even one without a Waffle House.

His father, Myron, and brother, Deon, played at Virginia Tech and Dazz has been around football since before he played at Hampton High School in Virginia, or even before he was old enough to wear his football uniform to bed, which he did as a youth player.

"My dad was a coach at the high school I went to, and really just me seeing a bunch of players — I've been the water boy since I was like 6 years old, up until I was in seventh grade," he said. "So really, just seeing all those players. I remember when I first got on the sidelines, Tyrod Taylor, he was at high school, and we were just seeing all them players, and seeing my brother.

"It was a bunch of great players that came through to my city and all that. Just seeing all those players and how they moved and how they made people miss, I just picked up pieces from everybody and really just put it in my game."

His game included being a running back at first, which is another reason he can make people miss when he catches passes out of the slot.

Playing at North Carolina after he first committed to Maryland, and playing at Hampton High, took are of his football education. His education about life came from living where he did.

"I think you’ve heard of Allen Iverson and Michael Vick and people like that," he said. "We just came from a tough neighborhood. I think that's just how everybody is. It's just like, you've got to get it, or you don't they're going to talk bad to you."

Besides a love of football, Newsome's father provided him with something else vital —his name.

"I don't really know the back story," he said. "I just asked my dad where my name came from and he told me it came from Daz Dillinger. I guess he liked him."

Dillinger was a rapper who worked with Snoop Dogg in the 1990s.

"Growing up, at first, I really didn't used to like my name when I was little, but then my mom always told me that you was gonna like it when you got older, and by the time I got to high school I did like my name a lot because I never met nobody named Dazz," Newsome said.

Newsome has been around big names and the sport and remains unfazed, but he could see something he hasn't experienced before when the rookies get put into the mix with veterans at minicamp in June, or even at organized team activities later this month.

"What he's done in his production at North Carolina and playing at that slot position it's gonna just be about taking advantage of opportunities," coach Matt Nagy said. "Right now these (rookie) guys, they're the big fish in the small pond, like I said yesterday with the only rookies being here really. So they're getting all the reps.

"When the vets come in they start losing out the physical reps and now it's more about mental reps. So it's a matter of can guys stay in tuned with their mental reps and then when they get a chance for physical reps can they take advantage and that's going to be the same thing for Dazz Newsome."

Especially at receiver this is the case because Allen Robinson, Darnell Mooney, Anthony Miller, Damiere Byrd and Marquise Goodwin, are among those involved.

"When you talk about Dazz you understand that that's a position he plays where we feel like it's probably some of the most depth that we have at a position and we feel he's just going to add to that," Nagy said.

Newsome's play at rookie camp indicates he could have a chance. 

The quickest way for a receiver to become a success is establish a connection with his quarterback and Newsome seems to be trying. He caught the first long ball Justin Fields threw in practice.

"Honestly, really just sticking to the script," Newsome said. "It's really just me being in the spot and doing what my coach tells me to do, and he put them on the money."

It doesn't hurt Newsome's chances of coming down with one when he knows Fields has the arm to put it there.

"Just knowing that every time I went deep, there's a chance I might get it because, for one, he's a guy that's looking downfield and he's definitely putting it right on the money," Newsome said. "So that's a good feeling."

Maybe not as good a feeling as seeing a Waffle House around Chicago, but good nonetheless.

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