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Good morning, Bears fans!

Has everyone here released their statement on the Bears stadium situation so you have political cover no matter what happens? If not, you may want to get on that.

Another round of OTAs begin tomorrow and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a round of pseudo-practices to get here more.

Kevin Kaduk

01 NFL News
Myles Garrett to the Rams
Anyone else more annoyed by what this news could mean for the Bears chances this year than the stadium bill stalling out? Sean McVay once again puts all his chips in play (hey, it worked before) and gets the reigning defensive player of the year in return. The Browns get 2024 DROY Jared Verse, plus a 1st in 2027, a 2nd in 2028 and a 3rd in 2029. A steep price but one the team can take with Matthew Stafford’s years numbered.

02 NFL News
AJ Brown to the Patriots
This one has been rumored for months and doesn’t have an impact on the Bears’ NFC chances. But it could make that Thursday night visit from the Pats in October that much more difficult.

03 NFL News
Raymond Berry dies at 93
I knew him as the Patriots coach that lost to the Bears in Super Bowl XX. My father’s generation knew him as Johnny Unitas’ trusty target on the Baltimore Colts. Anyone younger than us should learn about his Hall of Fame career and Berry’s role in the “Greatest Game Ever Played.”

1️⃣0️⃣3️⃣ Days Until The Season Opener
🎂Bears Birthdays: Germain Ifedi (32), Dwayne Joseph (54)

"The reality is, I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money in order to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team."

- JB Pritzker on the Bears’ stadium bill not being passed

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Three thoughts on the stadium

The stalling of the Bears stadium bill in Springfield happened so early on Monday morning that there wasn’t enough time or space to assess the fallout.

Now with an entire news cycle behind us, here are a few of my thoughts:

1 - Kevin Warren is taking the most damage: And if what’s floating out there is true, deservedly so. NBC’s Paris Schutz went on The Score’s morning show and said the Bears president didn’t listen to the team’s lobbyists or do the hard and humble work of meeting with individual lawmakers to get a deal done. Other politicians said the team — which is asking for billions in public money — was not easy to work with.

I’ll say this: There weren’t many tears shed around the Big Ten when Warren left for this job and the reporting then was that he hadn’t done enough politically to engender that kind of response. And while the offices of 18 university presidents are hard to navigate, it’s worlds easier than the pit of vipers that is Illinois politics.

Also: Is there something at Halas Hall that makes leadership automatically default to unearned arrogance and a refusal to do the work? I heard those quotes and immediately got PTSD of Ryan Pace not bothering to meet with Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson during the 2017 draft that landed Mitchell Trubisky.

The good news is that none of that water has seemed to infect Ben Johnson.

2 - Illinois politicians may have successfully called the Bears bluff on Hammond: Back when the Ricketts family was trying to garner public money for Wrigley Field, they made the laughable feint of saying they’d consider moving to Rosemont. No one, of course, believed that because Wrigley Field in inextricable from the Cubs identity at this point. No one bit on the bluff and the Ricketts were forced to transform Wrigleyville into Rosemont on their own dime.

I wonder if the same thing is at play here. But instead of a neighborhood and a team, it’s an entire state they can’t be extracted from. The Bears may be lucky enough to have a nearby state willing to play ball, but 100+ years of residency as the state’s most beloved citizens plus the “pride and joy of Illinois” lyric in the team’s fight song may have formed the same sense of permanency that JB Pritzker and others have identified as an advantage.

The two counterpoints to this argument: It only goes as far as George McCaskey’s unwillingness to make the unpopular decision to move to Indiana and the Bears can’t open their personal checkbook in the same way the Ricketts family did.

3 - None of this is lining up for a stadium situation that Bears fans deserve: All these years of planning, posturing and statements from the team would arguably be worth it if we ended up with a Bears stadium and campus that reflects its status as the league’s charter franchise — no matter which side of the state line it falls on.

At this point, do you see any real chance of that happening? Whenever this ends (and I’m assuming it’s going to end), the Bears will either be figuring out how to make the Arlington property best work for them or how to transform the Wolf Lake landscape.

And they’ll be doing it without the deep pockets of a Stan Kroenke or the vision of a Jerry Jones.

If Warren and the Bears haven’t been able to execute a funding play without any real semblance of success, why should we think they’re ready to run a construction playbook that will make us forget all of the nonsense it took to get to that point?

What do you think of the Bears stadium situation? Email me!

  • How the Bears stadium deal collapsed (Chicago Tribune)

  • Nicholas Moreano on why the Bears could’ve never pulled off a trade for Myles Garrett. (Bears Roundtable)

  • The Garrett trade could free the Bears to steal one of their other defensive studs next free agency period. (Bear Goggles On)

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