With help from Shaq, Trevin Wallace prepares for first start

So, on Monday afternoon, when Wallace’s phone went off with a text from Thompson, the rookie wasn’t too surprised to see it was insight into how to approach the game like Shaq, from the man himself, a full cut-up of the Bears based on things Thompson felt Wallace needed to watch.

“Him being a vet like that helped me out a lot,” Wallace said. “I’m going to go watch his cut up right here…it was really good. That’s a great vet right there.”

With his 10 years of experience in the NFL, Thompson has seen a lot around the league. So, he wanted to make a cut-up specifically of things Wallace should keep an eye on from the Bears.

“He was telling me watch the O-line, because the Bears move a lot of gaps,” Wallace shared. “So, watch the O-line, clean eyes, then strike. And the last thing he told me was go fly around and play football. He said go play like you’re in college. Just fly around and play ball and have fun.”

How Wallace played in college was part of what made Panthers general manager Dan Morgan fall in love with the off-the-ball backer.

“Athletic freak, a guy that can run sideline to sideline, strike ball carriers, and I think his ceiling is really high,” Morgan said of Wallace back in April after drafting him. “I think he’s a guy that’s going to develop, keep developing and turn into a good linebacker for us.”

At that time, that seemed months, maybe even years away. The Panthers knew what they were getting of college Wallace, but weren’t yet sure how that would translate to the NFL. After receiving a lot of playing time in the preseason though, linebackers coach Pete Hansen started to see the makings of a NFL player ready to start sooner rather than later.

“I really like his demeanor on game day that we learned about in preseason,” Hansen shared Thursday. “Seek and destroy, but it’s, I mean, he, he takes some calculations within that, which is good.

“We didn’t quite know what we were going to get until those preseason games, and we really saw not only the effort but the strength and, you know, his block destruction with his punch and finding the guy with the ball to go tackle him.

“From the beginning, we were excited about him and then once we saw him in game action, it proved to be what, we hoped he was.”