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Published on Thursday, 14 April 2011 08:35
Assuming the ongoing NFL lockout ends in the next two to three months, with the players union and the NFL owners coming to an agreement, the National Football League will begin its preseason at the start of August. The Chicago Bears have announced their preseason schedule, including their broadcast schedule of just where fans can see and hear these games.
This year, the Chicago Bears will have to play five preseason games, thanks to the team being picked to be one of the two teams to play in the Hall of Fame game to kick off the NFL preseason. The Hall of Fame game, plus one other game against the New York Giants, will be seen on national television, with the first on NBC's Sunday Night Football and the second being on ESPN's Monday Night Football. (ESPN will often allow sister-station WLS-TV to carry the live feed locally, but that has not yet been finalized.) The other three games will all be seen locally on WFLD-TV. Edited down versions of the games will be rerun at a later time on the NFL Network.
For the eighth year in a row, the final preseason game will be played against the Cleveland Browns.
The exact dates and times for the three locally-shown games have not yet been determined, but the NFL released approximate dates.
Also not announced yet is the WFLD-TV announcing crew. It is expected that the station will stick with the announcing crew they have used for the last two preseasons, with Sam Rosen on play-by-play, Erik Kramer on color commentary and WFLD-TV sportscaster Lou Canellis reporting from the sidelines.
All of five of the preseason games will be heard locally on the radio on the Chicago Bears flagship radio home, WBBM-AM. The radio announcers for the preseason games remain the same as they have been for the regular season, with Jeff Joniak on play-by-play, Tom Thayer on color commentary and Zach Zaidman reporting from the sidelines.
Here is the Chicago Bears 2011 preseason schedule:
- August 7 vs. St. Louis Rams, Fawcett Stadium (Canton, OH), 7:00pm -- WMAQ-TV/WBBM-AM
- August 11-14 (TBD) vs. Buffalo Bills, Soldier Field, (Time TBD) -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
- August 22 vs. New York Giants, New Meadowlands Stadium, 7:00pm -- ESPN*/WBBM-TV (*Also possibly on WLS-TV)
- August 25-28 (TBD) at Tennessee Titans, LP Field, (Time TBD) -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
- September 1-4 (TBD) vs. Cleveland Browns, Soldier Field, (Time TBD) -- WFLD-TV/WBBM-AM
