A few months before I was born, the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl. In doing so, they put a cherry atop their most exciting, storied season ever. It was such a big deal that in my toddler years, a Richard Dent action figure was just one piece of the ubiquitous ‘86 Bears mythology in my household—a totem object for the beginning of my life—and one of my very first news memories is of what the Chicago Tribune looked like on the day, years later, that head coach Mike Ditka was fired.
Millions of Chicagolanders my age can tell similar stories; those of living through a fandom most defined by stuff that happened before you were alive, occasionally punctuated by haphazardly successful Bears teams that usually relied on turnover creation for average offensive production. We got a Super Bowl run in 2007, and while that was fun, it was exactly this kind of ramshackle, wild-card outfit that took us there.
This past season, a generation of Chicago fans finally got a little taste of what a truly significant NFL team might feel like. Caleb Williams did things that clarified why he was the most hyped quarterback prospect of the past decade, and new head coach Ben Johnson consistently created strategic edges and cultural resilience that showed why he was the most buzzed-about coaching prospect of recent years. And this is only the start. We’ve got it made!
But at the very same time—if this week’s developments are to be believed—we could be looking at the end of the Bears’ time in Chicago. How cruel. After years of political and financial power games, surrounded by wild ideas about urban planning and development, all the noise about what will happen—or not—with plans for a potential new Bears stadium has reached absurd new negotiating heights: the Bears are threatening to move to northwest Indiana.
If you’re not from here, let’s clear something up: northwest Indiana is, in so many ways, Chicagoland. If your family is from the south side, it’s especially likely that you’ve known someone who’s crossed state lines five times a week to go work downtown. And if you listen to local radio, regional business ads are always stipulating that they also serve that one corner of Indiana.
There is a distinct spirit to crossing the border, though. You do it for cheaper real estate—my parents lived there for a little while after they got married, to save money for their first house—or to shop at firework depots, or (before we became such a Casino Nation) to go gamble. These days, a lot of Chicagoans drive through the area to hit up one of the mega-cheap weed dispensaries just over the line into Michigan, and when doing so, they always notice that the roads between Illinois and Michigan are too narrow and perpetually under construction.
Perhaps the proposed terms of a Hammond, Indiana stadium help us understand why. If Indiana is offering a cash-cow NFL team a generous heap of subsidies, and plans to take so little back in return, where exactly will the funds for their vast new infrastructure needs be coming from? That doesn’t seem to be a concern for state politicians, who just voted unanimously to approve a concept presented with all kinds of loaded terms by Governor Mike Braun—he describes their approach as “pro-growth,” and “mov[ing] at the speed of business.” (Economists have broadly discredited the idea that subsidies are good business for anyone but the teams who receive them).
Braun’s language strikes at another important characteristic of Chicagoland border-crossers: angry tax sentiment. Prickly anti-Liberal ideas are often behind regional resentments like the ones relished by the Indiana legislature right now, and if the Bears accept this package, it will be a huge win for the Chicago-hating contingent of our tri-state area (the third part of which is Wisconsin, where Chicago tourists are often referred to as F.I.B.’s, or “Fucking Illinois Bastards”). The Bears moving to Indiana would, in other words, mean a hell of a lot more than just a logistical shift.
Though the logistics would be nightmarish, too. The team’s famous practice facility, Halas Hall, is located in Lake Forest, a moneyed north shore suburb that much of the team’s roster and staff live in or around. Do they really want to ask them to move to Indiana? Because traffic in Chicago is a kind of hell, and I just got a migraine thinking about regular trips all the way through the entire city, to end up in Hammond, a city of about 80,000 people that would, in this scenario, see their population effectively double on game days. They have nowhere near the urban bandwidth for such occasions, right now.
A more suitable, but in its own way unromantic destination for the Bears is the northwest suburb of Arlington Heights. On paper it’s about as big as Hammond, but as a more direct piece of the Chicago metropolitan system, it is far more ready for the kind of crowds that a century-old franchise in the country’s most popular sports league would bring. Arlington Heights has been wooing the Bears for a long time now, and cleared the way for a deal that’s only being held up by the sudden seduction of Indiana’s team-friendly proposal.
Underpinning all of this is the idea that the Bears need a new stadium at all. Their insistence on one is often centered around the idea that an older, outdoor stadium in a cold city cannot host a Super Bowl, but I can’t think of any Chicagoans I know who are eager for that to happen here. Soldier Field, with its weird combination of Roman Colosseum structure and Gehryesque geometric abstraction, is flawed but beloved. The Bears just don’t like it because they don’t own it—the city does—and because it doesn’t offer them financial “growth” opportunities.
Another word for those: government handouts. At a time when the state is financially crippled by President Trump’s withholding of congressionally approved funds, it is exceedingly callous of the Bears to weaponize the moment for further self-enrichment. Bending the state over the negotiating pike, right now, is such a gobsmacking act of greed that if the Bears do go through with this move to Indiana, I won’t care how many MVP trophies Caleb has collected by 2030: my fandom will not continue.
The money-only logic the Bears are displaying in this situation is at the heart of what makes so many people feel hopeless about modern life. Profits only go so far before they start to defeat pride and purpose, and the Bears will be leaving so much of what matters about their franchise behind if they all care about is maximally fleecing a government. It’s bad enough that the team spent so much of my life bringing the franchise anywhere close to the glory it had before I existed. If they squander the hope they’ve only just earned with such a cynical decision, winning won’t be enough to sustain it.
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![Brandon Aiyuk’s 49ers divorce keeps getting uglier Brandon Aiyuk’s war of words with the San Francisco 49ers reached new heights on Tuesday.In a video posted to social media, Aiyuk blasted the organization as “stupid” for paying him, and “mad” at themselves for how the team was handling the situation.The video came after Aiyuk posted one over the weekend, where he called the 49ers “little-ass boys” who needed to “stop running from the bill.”The two videos are the wide receiver’s first lengthy public comments since the team placed him on the reserve/left team list back in December of last year. Aiyuk has not played in a game for the 49ers since midway through the 2024 season, when he suffered a torn ACL.Prior to the 2024 campaign, Aiyuk was a hold-in during training camp until he agreed to terms with the team on a new four-year extension worth up to $120 million.Head coach Kyle Shanahan, along with general manager John Lynch, continue to assert that Aiyuk has played his last snap for the 49ers. Speaking at the team’s end-of-season press conference in January, the coach indicated he had lost contact with Aiyuk, going on to say that “eventually you understand that it’s not going to change and you’ve got to move on with your football team.”On that January day, Lynch explicitly said that Aiyuk had “played his last snap with the Niners.”Then at the end of March at the league’s annual meetings, Shanahan maintained that stance, but did not put a timeframe on a resolution.“I don’t have a date for it, but I know eventually it’ll resolve itself,” Shanahan said in March. “Hopefully, we could get something for [him]. And I know we’re in no rush to do that. You’ve got to do what’s right for the Niners, and you’re not trying to hook up any other team as fast as you possibly can. Hopefully, we can get something for that, and it’ll take care of itself.”As far as what that resolution looks like, many believe Aiyuk will find a home with the Washington Commanders. Aiyuk played with Jayden Daniels at Arizona State, and over this past weekend did share a photos of himself wearing a Commanders hat.However, he is still technically under contract with San Francisco through the 2028 season. And while the 49ers did void the guaranteed money he was owed for 2026, the guaranteed money Aiyuk is owed for 2027 is still on the books.NFL insider Ian Rapoport addressed the situation on Monday.“First of all, here’s what the San Francisco 49ers would like: They have his rights, he’s not due any guaranteed money because he forfeited that by not showing up to his rehab,” said Rapoport. “So, they would like to trade him, probably to the Commanders, with his old friend Jayden Daniels and an organization that obviously knows him well, considering (Commanders general manager) Adam Peters was in San Francisco, and all that.“What the Commanders would like to do is sign him without having to trade him. … We’re in a situation where nobody wants to move at all. They’re all staring at each other. There’s really no deadline to make a move at all. So, until and unless everyone gets tired of Brandon Aiyuk sending Instagram messages, this is going to be a storyline that takes us through the summer.”Happy offseason, everyone. #Brandon #Aiyuks #49ers #divorce #uglier](https://i1.wp.com/platform.sbnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/gettyimages-2183567424.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C78.534031413613&w=1200&ssl=1 "Brandon Aiyuk’s 49ers divorce keeps getting uglier Brandon Aiyuk’s war of words with the San Francisco 49ers reached new heights on Tuesday.In a video posted to social media, Aiyuk blasted the organization as “stupid” for paying him, and “mad” at themselves for how the team was handling the situation.The video came after Aiyuk posted one over the weekend, where he called the 49ers “little-ass boys” who needed to “stop running from the bill.”The two videos are the wide receiver’s first lengthy public comments since the team placed him on the reserve/left team list back in December of last year. Aiyuk has not played in a game for the 49ers since midway through the 2024 season, when he suffered a torn ACL.Prior to the 2024 campaign, Aiyuk was a hold-in during training camp until he agreed to terms with the team on a new four-year extension worth up to $120 million.Head coach Kyle Shanahan, along with general manager John Lynch, continue to assert that Aiyuk has played his last snap for the 49ers. Speaking at the team’s end-of-season press conference in January, the coach indicated he had lost contact with Aiyuk, going on to say that “eventually you understand that it’s not going to change and you’ve got to move on with your football team.”On that January day, Lynch explicitly said that Aiyuk had “played his last snap with the Niners.”Then at the end of March at the league’s annual meetings, Shanahan maintained that stance, but did not put a timeframe on a resolution.“I don’t have a date for it, but I know eventually it’ll resolve itself,” Shanahan said in March. “Hopefully, we could get something for [him]. And I know we’re in no rush to do that. You’ve got to do what’s right for the Niners, and you’re not trying to hook up any other team as fast as you possibly can. Hopefully, we can get something for that, and it’ll take care of itself.”As far as what that resolution looks like, many believe Aiyuk will find a home with the Washington Commanders. Aiyuk played with Jayden Daniels at Arizona State, and over this past weekend did share a photos of himself wearing a Commanders hat.However, he is still technically under contract with San Francisco through the 2028 season. And while the 49ers did void the guaranteed money he was owed for 2026, the guaranteed money Aiyuk is owed for 2027 is still on the books.NFL insider Ian Rapoport addressed the situation on Monday.“First of all, here’s what the San Francisco 49ers would like: They have his rights, he’s not due any guaranteed money because he forfeited that by not showing up to his rehab,” said Rapoport. “So, they would like to trade him, probably to the Commanders, with his old friend Jayden Daniels and an organization that obviously knows him well, considering (Commanders general manager) Adam Peters was in San Francisco, and all that.“What the Commanders would like to do is sign him without having to trade him. … We’re in a situation where nobody wants to move at all. They’re all staring at each other. There’s really no deadline to make a move at all. So, until and unless everyone gets tired of Brandon Aiyuk sending Instagram messages, this is going to be a storyline that takes us through the summer.”Happy offseason, everyone. #Brandon #Aiyuks #49ers #divorce #uglier")
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