I think there are a multitude of issues with the Bears, ownership being chief among them.
But let's really break it down (long read - if you have a short attention span or an idiot, just skip this post):
* The McCaskey family are NOT your typical "rich" owners. They are basically first generation trust fund kids who inherited daddy's organization and have no idea how to run it. They don't have success in any other aspect of life. They basically milk the Bears for all its worth.
* "The McCaskey's are cheap" - both true and not. I don't think they set out to be cheap, but at the same time, because of their poor management and that the Bears are their only income basically, financial mistakes get magnified. They end up having to hold onto a coach or a GM too long because fiscally, despite owning an asset worth billions, they have no liquid capital to back it up. So they end up having to "eat" bad decisions a year too long.
* "When you sit down to play cards, your first job is to spot the sucker. IF you can't figure out who the sucker is, YOU'RE the sucker." This is the core of the McCaskeys. They go to search firms and OTHER TEAM OWNERS whom they technically are competing against for advice. Because they don't operate on a competitive plane. The McCaskeys think they are at a country club social. By all reports, they DO want to win, but frankly are too stupid, too gullible, and too clueless to do it, and that also includes matters of business - all this time, and they still haven't found ways to generate revenue to buoy potential expensive mistakes that they need to move on from but fiscally can't. THIS is how you end up with arranged marriages and people staying too long.
* Trace Armstrong - Kaplan wasn't wrong when he brought up Armstrong's hold on the McCaskeys, but even then, he didn't dig deep enough. The McCaskeys LOVE their former players - the association makes them feel special (so long as they don't have to pay them directly, hence Olin Kreutz and the famous $15 an hour). The McCaskeys are the type who absolutely would turn to someone like Armstrong to "help them". Does anyone remember the rumors going back even 5-10 years before his retirement that Armstrong may replace Ted Phillips as team president? Likely Armstrong angling for the spot and leaking things, and even though he didn't get the position, Kap covered just how much influence he has with the Bears based on their recent hires. Armstrong has a direct pipeline to the McCaskeys.
I think that paints a pretty good picture of the ineptitude of the McCaskey family.
So - any hope for change?
There actually IS one, but it is pure speculation on my part based on reading body language and what people are saying about the McCaskey's younger generation and the Inheritance tax.
First, let's start with the rumors most people have heard:
When Ginny dies, the inheritance tax will make it next to impossible for the McCaskeys to keep the team. And the other rumor is the kids of the McCaskeys who were in the room for the latest presser do not give a flying eff about the Bears - they basically are like spoiled rich kids and all want the team sold and they all get a cut. This is NOT what the elder McCaskeys want, but they have no choice - that inheritance tax is going to be a real *****, and they can't afford it. The board of directors for the Bears also knows this. The Board most likely leaned on the McCaskeys to face reality and try to get this team right and a stadium built so they can sell for maximum profit.
Somewhere in that process of internal evaluation, they got told by people evaluating the team for sale (it might even have come direct from the NFL) that their operation was basically too fucked up to get top dollar. The Board wouldn't have been happy about that. And Trace Armstrong, for all his ties, doesn't have expertise in that. They needed to hire an outsider.
Enter Kevin Warren.
However Kevin got here, the rhetoric around him is that he was looking for an opportunity to straighten out the Bears organization - likely for sale, imho. That includes the stadium deal, which, yes if we take on face value looks like the Bears don't know what they are doing, but the threat of staying downtown just provided enough leverage that Arlington Heights backed off on its demands and they agreed to the Bears original tax deal.
And the Stadium DOES need to be built in Arlington Heights. In addition to the land of the stadium itself,
there is enough room to build out an entire ecosystem around the stadium much like Wrigleyville has with the rooftops and bars and hotels and restaurants, all of which now are owned by the Ricketts. It actually provides a solution to the McCaskeys' cash flow problem if they could convince the kids not to sell - in Wrigleyville, the Ricketts' get a cut on everything they own, similar to how the city of Chicago gets a cut of parking and concessions in Soldier Field. If they were able to build all that up, all the income from game day revenues of not just in but outside the stadium would allow them to keep the team and provide steady income for generations, as well as allow the McCaskeys to move up to the tax brackets of some of their other owner counterparts.
Even if they sold the team, if they were smart, they could keep the land around the stadium and still get that income. But by all accounts, the McCaskey kids are just as stupid as their parents; they want everything sold and be done with it.
Anyway, pay close attention to Kevin Warren. Notice how in the press conference, he announced he felt like now was when he could start making the changes he wanted. Notice how the lone survior of Trace Armstrong's clients - the GM - looked like a broken man in that same presser. Warren, despite what he said about shared accountability and Ryan being the point person, looked in command, and Poles looked passive.
I think the only way you can read that, is that Warren has been there long enough, gotten a lay of the land, said what he has to in order to keep the idiot owners happy until he can get the stadium to break ground and can sell this thing, and now is ready to de-**** the Bears organization and get it ready for maximum sale. The presser sent an unspoken message imho - the days of Trace Armstrong's influence is over. For all the people wondering why it took so long to fire Eberflus, I think Warren finally made his move; he finally convinced George to do this the right way, convinced him that Trace's influence in the organization was a huge part of the problem, and to Poles's credit, seemed to see this coming, and worked with Warren, which is probably why he is still here.
But when you look at what Warren wants, and then see how passive Poles is, it definitely reads to me like they may move in a direction where the coach has more power than the GM - a first for the Bears.
I guess we will see, but so far, when I piece everything I've seen and heard together, that's what I come up with.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
