r/ChicagoBearsNFL

Okay guys I need help. I haven't been paying attention much in the off-season this year because I have been really busy. I saw the first week, but thats about it. With me not paying much attention I have no idea what our draft is looking like. Who are we possibly going to get and what positions are our biggest priority? Really any info and insight on the draft would also be nice

Has anyone been selected this year for Non PSL season tickets or have been offered a chance to relocate?

Trade #25 for #48 and #79 and #114

Trade #60 and #79 and #129 for #38 

#38: Zion Young

#48: Christen Miller

#57: Treydan Stukes

#89: Jalon Kilgore

#114: Logan Jones

#239: Daniel Sobkowicz

#241: Carsen Ryan

UFA: Chip Trayanum

Hey Bears fans! Over a month ago I conducted a survey on stadium opinions. Here are the results. Appreciate all the participants!

Bear down!

Two things are going to happen that will confuse a lot of people over the next ten days.

First: Kevin Warren and George McCaskey drove to Hammond today and spent hours going through what the mayor called "hundreds of due diligence items" at the proposed stadium site — on the same day the Illinois House adjourned without a floor vote, missing the crossover deadline to send the bill to the Senate. The Bears issued an official statement using the word "commitment" to describe their work in Hammond.

Second: HB910 — the megaprojects bill — will probably pass the Illinois House next week. Kam Buckner has been the most confident he's sounded in months. David Kaplan tweeted yesterday morning that he's more convinced than ever the Bears are going to Arlington Heights and expects a bipartisan vote in the next ten days. I think he's right about the vote. He's wrong about what it means.

Both things can be true simultaneously. Here's why.

What Happened In Hammond Today

The Northwest Indiana Times had exclusive access. Kevin Warren and George McCaskey — not lawyers, not staff (they were there too) — the chairman and the president/CEO of the Chicago Bears were photographed walking out of Lost Marsh Golf Club together with Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. after what McDermott called "the first one on-site that we've had with everybody present at the table."

The Bears' official statement: they "continue to work together with Indiana leaders on our commitment to finish the necessary due diligence work for the Hammond site."

The word is commitment. Communications teams don't accidentally use that word.

McDermott said they discussed "hundreds of different things." Think about what hundreds of items means for a moment. You don't review hundreds of items on a site you're exploring. You review hundreds of items when you're in pre-construction planning — utility routing, parcel sequencing, access points, construction phasing, environmental remediation specifics. That's not due diligence on whether to go. That's due diligence on how to build.

Scott Miller — Hammond's Chief of Staff, who was in the room — went on Facebook six hours after the meeting and wrote: "I was fortunate enough to attend this meeting today and I'll just say the future is bright for Hammond and the Region!" with a flexing emoji.

The Chicago Sun-Times beat reporter Patrick Finley, who covers the Bears daily and has organizational sources, called it "a public salvo." His word, not mine.

George McCaskey, whose family has owned this franchise since his grandfather bought it in 1920 for $100, was physically on the proposed stadium site in Indiana working through hundreds of operational details the day his home state legislature left town without passing his bill.

Watch what people do. Not what they say.

Why HB910 Will Probably Pass The House Next Week

Buckner has been working on this for three and a half years. He's not stupid and he's not lying — though he is a politician. When he says "punch list," "next week is a big week," and "good news very soon," he believes it and he wants to deliver it.

The AFP provision — the language that lets local governments count frozen property assessments at full market value when calculating levy limits and bonding capacity, shifting the resulting tax burden onto surrounding homeowners — will probably come out of the bill. It was originally in there to give local taxing bodies a financial incentive to sign PILOT agreements in the first place. The problem is the same language that made local governments willing to participate is the same language that makes homeowners near Arlington Heights pay higher bills for a tax break the Bears receive. AFP correctly identified this as a structural poison pill and mobilized against it. Taking it out resolves the Republican objection and the AFP mobilization simultaneously — and Buckner needs both.

The smaller investment tiers — the $100M and $250M thresholds that allowed smaller projects to qualify — will probably go too, leaving only the $500M floor. Cleaner bill, harder to attack.

Watch for amendment language filed Monday or Tuesday. Watch for a floor vote Tuesday through Thursday — the only three legislative days before a one-week recess. Watch for it to pass somewhere between 60 and 70 votes with a handful of Republicans.

Kaplan is probably right. He's just wrong about what the vote means.

Why Passing The House Doesn't Matter

Here's what everyone celebrating a House vote will miss.

HB910 missed the April 18 crossover deadline. That means it can't move through the Senate as a normal House bill. To get it to the Senate now, Buckner needs to use a shell bill — a piece of legislation already in the Senate that gets gutted and replaced with the megaprojects language. That requires Don Harmon, the Senate President, to actively want this to happen.

Harmon's office, when asked about the Bears situation throughout this process, said the Senate's focus is "education and health care and everyday affordability." He has been as publicly unenthusiastic as Welch from the beginning. Harmon controls the Senate Assignments Committee — the place late bills go to die if the Senate President doesn't want them moving. If the bill arrives in the Senate next Thursday with freshly amended language that senators haven't had time to review, Harmon has every reason to let it sit in Assignments through the recess.

So the most likely sequence is: House passes it. Senate doesn't act before recess. House and Senate both come back May 5. The Bears announce Hammond on May 1.

But even if by some combination of miracles the Senate moves fast and passes it before recess — the Bears still face this sequence before they have anything approaching a deal:

Negotiate the actual PILOT rate with Arlington Heights taxing bodies — school districts, park districts, municipalities, each with their own lawyers and no incentive to move quickly for a team that's been trying to leave. Secure the infrastructure funding — $734 million in roads, sewers, and transit — for which HB910 has no mechanism whatsoever. Concluded agreements with every relevant taxing body giving them the property tax certainty they said was mandatory from the start.

That process takes months under ideal conditions. These are not ideal conditions. These are taxing bodies in an election year who know they have maximum leverage over a franchise trying to exit.

Indiana's equivalent of all of this is already done. In statute. The Stadium Authority is constituted. The bond mechanism is established. The toll road renegotiation locked in $700 million for infrastructure. Tax rates are set in law, not subject to negotiation. The Bears sign a lease with an authority that already exists and is already funded. They may be waiting on the Fertitta Ceasars bid to conclude still... but that's not a state issue.

Here is the unavoidable math: The NFL spring owners meeting is May 19-20 in Orlando. If the Bears don't have a package ready to present there, the next opportunity for a formal ownership vote is October. The Bears are not missing Orlando. There is no version of an Arlington Heights deal that is presentable in Orlando by May 19. Even if the bill passes both chambers this week, the downstream negotiations required to produce actual property tax certainty would take until fall at the absolute earliest. Miss Orlando and it goes to October. The Bears will not let that happen.

The Script, Filled In

Here's how the next three weeks play out.

Buckner files his amendment, gets his House vote, takes a bow. If the Senate stalls — likely — he still delivered the House. He was on the punch list. He was working. He talked to Kevin Warren every morning. He nearly did it. That's a serviceable legacy and it gives every Illinois Democrat the cover they need.

The press covers the April 29 NFL Stadium Committee meeting where Kevin Warren briefs ownership on Bears stadium progress. Leaks begin surfacing that Hammond is the site.

Pritzker issues a statement: the scaffolding was there, the House delivered, the Bears chose a business timeline over a legislative one. He tried. It's in the record.

Welch says approximately nothing. Two paragraphs, platitudes, moves on. His district isn't losing anything and he was never invested.

Harmon notes it's unfair to blame the Senate, which received a bill with newly amended language and insufficient time to review it before recess. He's not wrong technically, which is exactly why this outcome serves him.

Brandon Johnson is loudest. Billionaires over community. A century of legacy abandoned for tax incentives. This plays well with his base and costs him nothing since the Bears were never coming to the city anyway.

Goodell already pre-authorized the Bears' exit framing. Every time he said "sooner rather than later" at the owners meetings he was handing the Bears a script line. The Bears' announcement cites the NFL's institutional timeline, the Stadium Committee's April 29 meeting, and the Orlando ownership vote as reasons they could not wait for a legislative process with no guaranteed completion date.

The Bears announce Hammond on or around May 1 with full Wolf Lake renderings, emphasize they're staying in Chicagoland within their defined NFL market territory — the same statute the Giants and Jets have played in since 1976 — thank Illinois and Buckner by name, cite NFL timeline requirements, and pivot to the excitement of what gets built.

Jim Tinaglia reminds everyone he warned the process was moving too slowly and assures Arlington Heights that their 326 acres will be developed.

Two immediate questions need answers. What happens to the Arlington Heights land — the Bears call it a future mixed-use development opportunity they're committed to making valuable for the community. What about the Soldier Field lease — "we will honor our commitments to the city" while lawyers negotiate the exit payment behind closed doors.

Why Friday May 1

May 1 is a week after the draft ends. The Bears aren't announcing during draft week — too much noise, wrong story, the league would ask them not to. But the post-draft NFL analysis cycle means football content already dominates the conversation the week of April 28, which helps the stadium story land in a media environment already primed for Bears news.

The real reason for a Friday afternoon announcement is simpler. Monday through Thursday announcements give Chicago a full work week of grief, political grandstanding, and media retrospectives before any relief. Five days of angry takes, tearful Soldier Field retrospectives, and Illinois politicians positioning themselves while the McCaskey family absorbs maximum civic punishment with nowhere to hide.

Friday at 3 or 4pm Central, the news breaks. Sports radio goes wall to wall Friday evening. Social media erupts overnight. Saturday morning is raw. By Saturday afternoon the conversation is already moving. The weekend acts as a pressure release valve — the grief lands but doesn't fester through a full news cycle. Next week pivots back to draft picks.

After May 1, Illinois is in recess until May 5. Nothing Springfield can do. No emergency session. No legislative response possible. The recess insulates the announcement completely.

Orlando is May 19-20. Eighteen days between announcement and ratification. Long enough for the news to breathe. Short enough to feel inevitable.

The Thing Nobody Is Talking About

Scott Miller posted a flexing emoji from Hammond today. Kam Buckner expressed confidence and it was picked up everywhere. The Hammond Mayor has been expressing confidence for weeks. His Chief of Staff posted from inside the meeting room and nobody covered it.

The press is playing with your emotions. Buckner's optimism gets 214K views on Twitter. Warren and McCaskey going through hundreds of pre-construction due diligence items at the stadium site gets a brief mention in the Northwest Indiana Times.

One of these things is a politician saying words. The other is the Bears' chairman physically present on the site.

HB910 may well pass the House next week. It's a good show — or worse, useful precedent for a future toxic megaproject that has nothing to do with the Bears.

The Chicago Bears are announcing Hammond, Indiana on or around Friday May 1.

This is the same script I outlined weeks ago with the details now filled in. Illinois needs to look like they tried and ran out of time. The Bears need to look like they had no choice. Every actor is hitting their mark.

Watch what people do. Not what they say.

Previous posts in profile.

Is there anyone willing to share their link/code for the Chris Brown and Usher presale? 🙏🏼

Two things happened today that should be read together.

This morning, Capitol News Illinois published a piece titled "Illinois lawmakers claim progress on Bears stadium legislation." This AM, Kam Buckner went on Mully and Haugh and told Chicago that they're at the "punch list" stage, Welch isn't a blocker, and good news is coming in "very short order."

Neither of those things is the same as a floor vote. And the Bears present to the NFL Stadium Committee in 12 days.

Here's what today actually told us.

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**The Capitol News Illinois Article**

Brenden Moore's piece is worth reading carefully because it's the most detailed public accounting of where the bill actually stands — and it's not as optimistic as the headline suggests.

The summary Moore himself wrote says it plainly: "Illinois lawmakers did not advance property tax legislation this week." That's his lede. His headline says they "claim progress." His own first sentence says otherwise.

What the article confirmed is actually three separate problems that haven't been solved.

The first is Welch's rule. Moore wrote that the Speaker's unofficial requirement that 60 House Democrats support a bill before it gets called "remains in effect" and is "a hurdle to overcome." Present tense. Today. On the day the House adjourned. This is Capitol News Illinois — the outlet closest to Springfield Democrats — confirming the obstacle exists in the same article where Buckner is calling everyone optimistic. Welch is blocking the ability for Republicans to make up the difference, should that negotiation prove fruitful. This confirms Welch is in fact blocking a vote as Ganis claimed.

The second is a structural flaw in the bill itself that AFP spent this week activating against. The provision lets local governments count frozen property assessments at full market value when calculating how much they can tax everyone else. In plain English: the Bears get a tax break, and the school district next door expands its levy as if the Bears were fully taxable, and the homeowners near Arlington Heights absorb the difference. AFP called it the most dangerous property tax idea in state history and mobilized its grassroots network against the exact Republican members Buckner needs.

Here's the catch-22 Buckner is now facing: Moore reported they may remove that language to resolve the political problem. But that language exists because local taxing bodies — school districts, park districts, municipalities — needed the expanded levy capacity as an incentive to sign PILOT agreements with the Bears. Remove it to satisfy AFP and you destroy the reason local governments would negotiate in the first place. Keep it to maintain local government cooperation and AFP burns the coalition down. This is not a punch list item. This is load-bearing.

Moore reveals that to appease nervous lawmakers, they are having to neuter the legislation by raising the threshold to $500 million and slapping a 5-year sunset clause on it so they can "assess the effectiveness of the tool". Even with that, they aren't too 60 Democrats.

The third problem Moore confirmed is the one getting the least attention: Chicago. The article noted that city lawmakers "will likely have to receive something in exchange for their votes." No framework. No offer. No public discussion of what that something is. The Chicago members aren't being difficult — they represent constituents who are losing the Bears from Soldier Field and they need something real to show for their vote. That negotiation has not happened in public and may not have happened at all.

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**The Buckner Interview**

Buckner called Ganis's Welch claim(that he's the sole person obstructing a deal) "fabrication with confidence" and "a willful mischaracterization." Strong language. He said Welch gave him the green light to bring this home.

Read that carefully. What Buckner described is Welch authorizing him to negotiate. What Buckner did not say is that Welch committed to scheduling a floor vote. A Speaker can greenlight negotiations forever. Those are genuinely different things and Buckner — a lawyer and experienced legislator — chose his words precisely.

He also said next week is a big week. He said good news is coming very short order. He didn't file an amendment. He didn't announce a vote. He didn't name a date.

He did mention, in the same breath as his Bears optimism, that he's simultaneously serving on the House budget negotiation team for a $57 billion state budget. He framed it as "I can walk and chew gum." But Pritzker's statement Thursday told you which one is actually the priority: "We have a lot of things on the schedule that need to get done before the end of May, including a balanced budget." The Bears bill and the state budget are competing for the same legislative oxygen in the same closing weeks of session. Everyone in Springfield knows which one Welch cares about more.

I'm very curious how an already-submitted budget absorbs the 800 million in infrastructure Arlington needs after it's already been made. The entirety of the infrastructure has been ignored, there's no bill. Star bonds are banned for sports team use, there's no way to fund it. If Pritzker says he'll appropriate existing funds to this location he needs to be taken at his word which he can't keep if he leaves office... And financing entities need certainty. It can't be financed.

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**The Calendar**

The House returns for just three days next week — Tuesday April 21 through Thursday April 23. Then a one-week recess. The House comes back May 5.

The Bears present to the NFL Stadium Committee the morning of April 29. During the recess. The House cannot act.

So the actual window for Illinois to change the Bears' calculus before the committee meeting is three legislative days. Three days to file amendment language, get it reviewed, resolve the AFP provision catch-22, figure out the Chicago concession framework, assemble 60 Democratic votes including members who currently have no reason to vote yes, and get it to the floor. Oh, by the way, the deadline to send bills from the House to the Senate was today.

That is not a punch list. That is starting over.

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**Meanwhile In Indiana**

The Indiana Finance Authority approved the toll road deal Tuesday — $700 million from ITR Concession Company, structured as $300M within 30 days, $200M within a year, $200M within two years, in exchange for twice-annual toll hikes. State Budget Committee reviewed it Thursday. Every financial component of the Hammond package is now formally approved by the appropriate Indiana government bodies.

The Bears were at the Hammond site Monday. Another visit occurred on site today.

Fertitta's 45-day window to acquire Caesars — which operates Horseshoe Hammond who holds the exclusive casino license in Hammond, adjacent to the stadium site — expires approximately April 28. Caesars releases Q1 earnings after market close April 28 with an investor call at 5pm. VICI Properties, the real estate trust that owns the land under Horseshoe Hammond, reports April 29 and holds its call April 30.

The NFL meeting is the morning of April 29. Caesars earnings are the evening of April 28 so the Bears should know who their development partner in Hammond is by the time they meet with the committee. VICI earnings are April 30. The Fertitta exclusive negotiation window closes April 28.

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Buckner said punch list. Moore's own article said the obstacles are present tense. Indiana's package is complete. The Bears have three legislative days before the House goes on recess and the NFL meeting happens during that recess, in 12 days.

It begs the question... Is the good news simply the finality of the discussion as the final nails are hammered into Arlington Park's coffin?

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