Chicago Bears chairman George McCaskey is keenly aware of fans’ growing frustration. How could he not be? Under his leadership, the NFL’s charter franchise, once a treasure and marquee pro football touchstone, has languished in a dark abyss akin to an uncleaned gas station toilet off the side of a busy interstate passage.
In 14 years under McCaskey, the Bears have one winning season. They have as many last-place finishes in the NFC North (six) as they do playoff berths in the 21st century. As another coaching search intensifies at the start of the 2025 offseason — is Ben Johnson really on the way? — the next person they hire to roam their sideline will be the fifth McCaskey’s Bears have hired in the last decade alone. For comparison’s sake, another “storied” NFL franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers, has had three head coaches in the last five decades combined.
The gravity of the Bears’ latest coach search is not lost on the failson McCaskey or any of his overmatched cronies. In Caleb Williams, if McCaskey’s crew of yes men screws up the next coaching hire, Chicago is in serious danger of squandering the best lottery ticket it’s had since the mid-1980s — a generational quarterback talent who can lift a franchise on his shoulders but only if he gets the chance.
Ask some Bears fans, and they are rightfully tired of watching McCaskey’s guidance waste their time and undeserved emotional investment. The Bears have toiled in the NFC’s basement for years now, and it sure doesn’t seem like anything meaningful will change for the better any time soon.
Naturally, some Bears supporters decided to start vociferous “sell the team” chants at home games down the stretch of Chicago’s 2024 campaign. When asked for his thoughts on the general idea of the chant and what it represents at the Bears’ season-ending press conference on Tuesday, McCaskey deflected like a coward.
He said he was more troubled by visiting rowdy Detroit Lions fans outnumbering Bears fans in cold Chicago weather just before Christmas, almost forcing the Bears to use silent counts on offense.
Because of course he was:
George McCaskey heard the sell the team chants. He was more bothered by what he heard against Detroit at home. pic.twitter.com/cgXLX24Nth
— Mark Carman (@thecarm) January 7, 2025
Of all the seemingly countless ways McCaskey has shown he’s in over his head restoring the NFL’s oldest team to its former glory, this response speaks volumes. Of course he’s more upset Lions fans were loud at the Bears’ home stadium late in yet another lost season for his team compared to hearing cries to surrender control of the team.
Because McCaskey doesn’t understand how any of this works.
The “sell the team” chants came from the people brave enough to watch a single-digit win squad in late December in the glorified polar vortex known as the Midwest. Lions fans outnumbered Bears fans because Detroit has a Super Bowl-caliber juggernaut. For diehard supporters, it’s undoubtedly worth driving just about five hours over from Michigan to take over a road stadium most Bears fans have no interest in occupying at the present moment.
McCaskey’s fixation on the number of Lions fans in attendance is another sign that he can’t see the forest for the trees. He doesn’t really understand why Bears fans are fed up. And he’s guaranteeing the chants will likely continue when the Bears inevitably play sub-.500 football once again next winter.
