Four fun facts about new Chicago Bears center Drew Dalman

The Chicago Bears made an early splash in the free agency pool, agreeing to terms with former Atlanta Falcons center Drew Dalman to a three-year, $42 million deal.

Arguably the top middleman on the market, Dalman was Chicago’s free agent white whale, a young player who hasn’t yet hit his ceiling. Since he’ll be at Halas Hall for at least three years, we should get to know the 26-year-old former Stanford Cardinal, so here are a quartet of Drew-centric factoids:

1) All In the Family

Drew’s father is Chris Dalman, an O-lineman who spent his seven-year career in San Francisco, where he started all but five games over his last four seasons.

Drew’s sister Kate is also a football nerd, holding down a gig as operations and recruiting assistant for Stanford’s football program.

2) Drew Is a Smarty Pants

You have to have some quality brain cells to get into Stanford, and Drew is overflowing with 'em. A mechanical engineering major, Dalman and his 3.61 GPA were voted onto the 2020–2021 Academic All-American second team by CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America).

3) Brains + Brawn = Lots of Recruiters

Dalman crushed his classes at Palma High School in Salinas, California, so much so that he was recruited by such academic heavyweight universities as Yale and Michigan.

But he was also pretty dang good at football, so he also received entreaties from Arizona, Colorado, Columbia, Fresno State, Idaho, Nevada, Washington, and Wyoming.

4) One Cool Guy

The 6’3”, 305-pounder partners with CoolMitt, a company that manufactures cooling units to help athletes stay comfy during training.

Of the units, Dalman explained, “Some early prototypes of their technology was being used at Stanford while I was there, so I mess around with that and got familiar a little bit. I experienced my [first] training camp in Atlanta and the heat comes with that. I kind of went back to the drawing board in the offseason and I was like, ‘Okay, what can I do to help myself out there?’”