What’s in a name? The Bears will still be The Bears
There is no such thing as a “done deal” with the Bears, as recent two-minute heroics by quarterback Caleb Williams can attest. Or as “undone” seasons can be more appropriately defined by the 40 years of Super Bowl failure.
Things get done or they don’t, usually not, so the sporadic stadium spasms that tease or tempt or annoy will continue until they stop. Lakefront? Suburbs? Indiana? Iowa? Pick a site, any site and wake me when it’s over.
The Chicago Bears, of course, belong in Chicago, just as the Santa Clara 49ers and the New Jersey Giants/Jets and the Orchard Park Bills belong in … well, that’s a common rationalization for namesake fraud.
Identity is not portable. It is provable. It is what it is. Go to the DMV without an electric bill and a voters’ registration and good luck with the self-important gnome who fails you because you didn’t back out your car at a precise 90 degree angle.
Uh, where was I? Oh, yes. Identity.
The NFL has 10 teams who are not where their names say they are, and that does not include the New England Patriots who could be anywhere from Maine to Connecticut without issue.
Still, they were once the Boston Patriots and I have covered them in Harvard Stadium and Boston College when they were.
Arizona, too, could be in Tempe or Glendale and never in Phoenix, though they once were called the Phoenix Cardinals as they also were once called the Chicago Cardinals and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Yeah. St. Louis. That’s a place that can steal teams but cannot keep them. Hello, Rams. Good-bye Rams. Yet, they have a more or less vacant downtown arena the Bears would not be ashamed to have.
Cleveland, like Chicago, has a perfectly functional and attractive new-ish stadium, downtown, on the lake, next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the Browns want the suburbs and are planning a new place out by the airport.
Washington D.C. wants the Redskins — oops, Commanders — back from Maryland. Plans are to build a football palace where the historic RFK stadium served well for generations.
Tampa Bay is not in Tampa Bay whereas during hurricane season one cannot always be certain, but the Buccaneers are on their second stadium and looking to renovate.
The Tennessee Titans could be anywhere, and my first guess would be Knoxville, maybe Memphis, where they were for a season. But it turns out they are in Nashville and not Titans at all but old Oilers, a name dropped because, well, I suppose it didn’t fit into a country song.
Minnesota has claimed the Vikings forever, but not always in Minneapolis. In a rare suburb (Bloomington) to city move, the Vikings came to Minneapolis and to two domed stadiums, one after the other, built without the agonizing bluster that surrounds the Bears.
Same with Indianapolis, that old franchise thief that stole the Colts from Baltimore has built two domed stadiums downtown while Chicago cannot build one.
The Bears could be the Illiana Bears or the Chicagoland Bears as long as they are the Bears, just like the Raiders have been Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas but always the Raiders, and in Paradise, not Las Vegas.
The Kansas City Chiefs were once the Dallas Texans, a surname hard to transfer, and will remain the Chiefs even as they move from one Kansas City to another, an option not open to the Bears.
Maybe that could be the deal breaker. Whichever place lands the Bears, they have to change their name to Chicago.
Indiana is the dead fly in the soup, eager and foolish, touting itself as “open for business.” Are Indiana politicians dumber than Illinois politicians? Well, that’s like comparing dumpster divers. You don’t want to shake hands with either.
Indiana’s governor, whoever that is, is all a twitter over the burden ahead, seeing blue skies and real people back on the streets of Hammond, which is no Arlington Heights, by the way, while Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, confesses his disappointment in the Bears, not the first to do so.
The Chicago Bears cannot be the Chicago Bears if they are not in Chicago. And that’s that.