George McCaskey on Ray McDonald and other Chicago Bears OTA news

Earlier today after the Chicago Bears wrapped up the first of their OTAs for this week, and team Chairman George McCaskey addressed the media on the Ray McDonald situation.

If you were following his mini-press conference on Twitter, it was interesting to see how the exact same quotes affected different members of the media differently. Some praised McCaskey for his handling of the situation, while others were calling for his head.

If you want to read the full transcript of McCaskey's comments, you can check out the Chicago Sun Times. Here are a few highlights from the transcript.

He was asked if he has any regrets about signing McDonald.

"I've asked myself that question a lot: ‘What more could I have done? Is there somebody else we could have consulted with? Should I have taken more time to make a decision?' I don't know. We thought we had a good structure, a good support system. We thought we had safeguards in place in case something like this happened."

And if this failed signing will change the way the Bears go after free agents with character flags from now on.

"Well one positive is that's a word that can be used, to come out of this is that the process that we've set up has been reinforced and, in the end, worked. As a I said, we had safeguards in place. (General manager) Ryan (Pace) came to me for permission. So we have the reinforcement of that process. I just need to make a better decision."

One of the biggest criticisms of the vetting process was the fact that the Bears spoke with McDonald, but not the alleged victim. McCaskey was asked if he regrets this decision.

"I thought a lot about that too. Not just before signing him but since. One of my concerns was the bias anybody has in that situation. An alleged victim wants to make sure that charges are filed. An alleged perpetrator is doing everything he can to make sure that charges aren't filed. So that was part of it. But a larger concern to me was that I didn't want to interfere with any criminal investigation or with any league investigation by talking to the child's mother."

He obviously encountered some bias from McDonald and his people as well, but I had a feeling there may have been a legal issue with him seeking out the alleged victim.

The decision to sign McDonald was George McCaskey's, but his general manager did come to him with the recommendation, so he was asked if this would affect his confidence in G Ryan Pace moving forward.

"Not at all. We have complete confidence in Ryan."

Remember to hit the Sun Times link above for the full transcript and you can also click here for the audio.

In other Bears' OTA news...

As expected running back Matt Forte, who is entering the final year of his contract, was at practice, but tight end Martellus Bennett elected to stay away from the voluntary OTA.

The NFLPA Rookie Premiere is being held this week in Los Angeles and Chicago rookies Kevin White and Jeremy Langford are both in attending the event, so no OTAs this week for them.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Christian Jones said he&#39;s been working a lot with Shea McClellin at ILB in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bears?src=hash">#Bears</a> 3-4. Said McClellin is handling the defensive calls well.</p>&mdash; Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) <a href="https://twitter.com/adamjahns/status/603624130114641921">May 27, 2015</a></blockquote>

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Jones and McClellin working together inside? I like it.