Patrick, how are you, man? Not too bad.
How about you? I'm a little busier than I thought I might be this week. Hey, well listen, the Chicago Bears with a little bit of a surprise. Did you expect them to move this fast in adding Tooney and then Jonah Jackson from the Rams?
I didn't expect them to be this aggressive on the trade market. I figured that they'd throw a lot of money at offensive lines when free agency started next week. You knew that they had their eye on Trey Smith, the Chiefs guard, but when the Chiefs decided last week to give him the franchise tag, I think the Bears, you know, went to look at Plan B and Plan B turned out to be taking some money off the Chiefs' hands in part so the Chiefs can then give Trey Smith probably a really long contract extension. Well, when you take a look at the Chicago Bears, it's a no brainer to go ahead and try to get some help for Caleb Williams.
He was sacked almost 70 times last year leading the NFL. We know they still have to fill out the tackle spot. Do you assume that the Bears will get him some more protection in free agency? Are we looking at the draft, the combination?
Yeah, probably a combination. You know, more than tackle, I would probably look at center if the way the Bears start free agency. Drew Dalman is widely considered to be the best one out there. He's coming from the Falcons. We'll see whether his market gets too rich for the Bears' blood after what they've spent in the last two days, but, you know, with Caleb Williams, there's nothing more important than his comfort and that starts with being able to protect for him. You know, two quarterbacks in the history of the NFL have been sacked more in one year than Caleb Williams was last season.
That is just unacceptable. Ben Johnson, the Bears' new head coach, is coming from a team that was built around a great offensive line. So, those two factors have really pushed the Bears in the direction of trying to revamp their line and that's going to be maybe four out of the five guys. You know, right now Darnell Wright at right tackle might be the only one who comes back in the same spot. Their two guards and one center are all free agents and then you've got Braxton Jones who's been okay in his Bears tenure, but he's recovering from ankle surgery and you just kind of don't know what you're going to get there. And Patrick Finley is joining us, covers the Chicago Bears for the Sun-Times.
When you talk about Caleb Williams, we saw what Jaden Daniels did. This man was one step away from the Super Bowl. We saw, unfortunately, the Bears went five and twelve. There were some hopes that they would, I don't know, maybe sit in that eight or nine win range and compete for a playoff spot. That didn't happen with only five victories.
What's the expectation? It's early, but are fans looking for a big jump given what they've seen between the Strouds and the McDaniels over the past couple of years? Yeah, I mean, fans were looking for that jump last year and you said it, you know, and the combination of the drafting of Caleb Williams first overall and then, you know, the Bears appear on hard knocks, you know, which, you know, every scene there was approved by the team. So it was a pretty good five-week commercial for the future of the Bears. And, you know, through the first six weeks of the season, they were a pretty good football team.
They were four and two and then things just went downhill so quickly. I think Bears fans here have been burned before and not just last season. So they might know, they might be too smart to expect absolute greatness this season, but they're expecting a winning record at least. And I think if you told them a winning record and Caleb Williams makes the jump to, you know, a top 12, top 15 quarterback, I think Bears fans would be pretty thrilled with that. As it is that, you know, their roster is built to win now. I mean, you look at, you know, DJ Moore and Roma Dunsé at receiver, you look at Cole Kemet at tight end, you know, DeAndre Swift at running back. And then, you know, the defensive backfield is one of the best defensive backfields in football. Like this isn't a team trying to build slowly with young guys.
This is a team equipped to win now. You know, the question is whether they can actually do it. Before they added Tooney and also Jonah Jackson, they were heading into free agency with the fifth largest amount of salary cap space. So outside of potentially getting a center, where else do you see them allocating that money? Of course, they got to wait on the draft. I know they select a 10th.
What do you see them doing with that cash? They got to find a way to get to the passer somehow. And whether that's a defensive end or defensive tackle, something has got to change. You know, they gave Montez Sweat a ton of money a year and a half ago to be who they hoped would be a game-changing defensive end.
And he's been up and down. Last season, he didn't have the impact that many people thought he would and that he thought he would. So they need to put somebody opposite him who is a threat to get to the quarterback. One of the more intriguing names floating around there is Khalil Mack. And if you remember, when Ryan Polis, the Bears' current GM, got here, maybe the first big move he made was to trade Khalil Mack to the Chargers to start the Bears' complete tear down. He's available in free agency, and he might provide the kind of pass rush punch that the Bears so desperately need.
If they don't go with him, maybe it's something a little less flashy. But even if they went and got a defensive tackle or defensive end in free agency, I wouldn't rule out them looking at one either with that 10th pick or with their two second round picks. Remember, they not only have their own draft pick, but they have the Panthers' second round pick from the Caleb Williams trade, which is the gift that keeps on giving.
So, you know, with those three spots, I expect the Bears to target the line even if in free agency they do a pretty good job of smoothing that out. Well, Patrick, you had mentioned first year head coach Ben Johnson kind of leading the way here with Caleb Williams. People look at him as a miracle worker for everything that took place up in Detroit.
What do you expect over this next year? How has he been received so far? I see people in Detroit, some of them, I guess, five people online angry. You know, he's a turncoat. Oh, he left. People in Detroit are loving him and waiting for him, right?
I mean, what are you supposed to do? I mean, you know, he was the best offensive coordinator in the NFL last season. The year before, you know, if he wasn't number one, he was certainly, you know, on the podium somewhere. And, you know, you become a good offensive coordinator, so one day you can become a head coach. And he was really attracted to the Bears for a lot of reasons.
Number one is Caleb Williams. And that's, I think most coaches in the NFL would like a chance to build from the bottom up with Caleb, who, despite his struggles last year, is still really, really talented. Number two is that Ben Johnson for the last decade had been coming to Chicago in the summer to go catch a Cubs game and hang out. And, you know, he and his wife would sit there and talk about how cool it would be if you were ever a big deal as a head coach in the city of Chicago. So, you know, he's had this job circled for a while now and with good reason.
Now, what do I expect from him? I expect him to make Caleb Williams almost unrecognizable from last year. You know, the Bears had three different offensive coordinators and two different play callers last season. That's not the situation you want to put a rookie quarterback in. And, you know, you certainly can't expect him to rise above that noise, especially in the year where the Bears fired their head coach for the first time in the 125-year history of the franchise during the season. So, you know, that was, those were all strikes against the franchise last year. I expect Ben Johnson to not only bring stability, but to bring some expertise.
And I think by the end of this season, we're going to notice what a giant difference that that's made. I like it. I mean, the more beef and juice we could have between the Bears and the Lions, I mean, go ahead, please sign me up for it. I'm here for all of it. The NFC North, everybody hates everybody, as much as the Bears and Packers like to talk about it being the best rivalry in football.
And I do think it is that. Boy, you know, the Vikings and Packers don't get along. The Bears and Lions don't get along. There's no love lost between any of those four teams. Hey, well, that's that's a good thing. More competition, the better. Now, we did learn, unfortunately, a little more than a month ago, the team lost its owner.
I get it. She was 100 years old, 100 plus years old, Virginia Hallis McCaskey. She wasn't just, you know, running a team on a day to day basis. What does this mean for the franchise, if anything, moving forward? And then separately, of course, I want to get an update on what the hell is going on with that stadium. Well, all I can do is quote George McCaskey, who asked, you know, who's been asked over the years whether his family would ever sell the team and give up control of the team.
And he said that that's going to happen when Jesus returns to Earth. So unless you see a big fireball coming down in the sky, I think we can presume that the McCaskey are going to keep the team now. You know, the NFL has rules now where you can sell 10 percent of the team to private equity. And that's a good way to get some cash.
It's a good way to get some cash to give to the family members on your board. It might be a good way to get some cash to build the stadium. So we know that the Bears have said for the last year that they're kind of keeping an eye on that.
And I'll be curious to see what happens with that. As far as the stadium, it seems to be a stalemate downtown again. And, you know, they're really running out of time to get a deal that anybody in the state or the city of Chicago would really be willing to go to bat for. I wouldn't be surprised if they turn back toward Arlington Heights. Remember, they have 326 acres of land there and they have some property tax certainty now that they cut a deal with that suburban village. So, you know, maybe sometime after the draft and before summer break, something like that, maybe we'll see some movement. But the momentum seems to be swinging back toward Arlington Heights. Wait, so it's weighted more towards the Bears going out into the burbs and leaving the waterfront, the lakefront?
Yeah. I mean, they haven't been able to get a deal done yet. And, you know, and the municipalities, I mean, it's going to be hard to get money out of the state either way. But, you know, the municipalities they're dealing with, you know, I think Arlington Heights has given itself a chance to go wrestle that back from the team. And again, you know, they own the land. You know, the Bears aren't a construction company. I don't know what their level of interest is in building hotels and restaurants and bars and stores and everything else that goes with that. But, you know, they certainly have the land to do it if they want to, or they can parcel it out a little bit.
And maybe that's a good way to split the baby. Hey, they can do their own Wrigleyville up in the burbs. I can tell you this once, Patrick, if they are not downtown, I ain't going, okay?
Just FYI. I'll tell you that it's the best location. I mean, I've been to every NFL stadium going.
It's the best location in the NFL by double. And I mean, it's fantastic. But just the building itself is old and not up to standard. And you know what?
That's what happens. The Bears have still not been their own, you know, landowner. They've rented from the city of Chicago.
And, you know, when you do that, things can get in the state of disrepair and there's nothing really you can do about it. So that's a big part of the impetus there. My big question is, you know, how you're going to run public transportation to Arlington Heights. You know, there's some suburban trains that go there. But boy, if you want a fan base from, you know, the south side of Chicago, fan base from Indiana, fan base from the city, be able to get to that suburb. You got it.
You got to help them somehow. Yeah. No, thanks. Not me. I'll stay downtown, but I ain't going out there, OK? It's enough I got to get from the airport.
So you can throw that out the window. I'm being honest, Patrick. Next time I'm in Chicago, I'll meet you downtown. It won't be at the football stadium if they move it. If the basketball team or the hockey team could get better, we could go there. Well, I'm with that.
Hey, Patrick, thank you so much for the time and the insight. It looks like I mean, the Bears can't they can't win five games again unless people are getting hurt. So this is some positivity here.
All this work that they're doing with the offensive line. Where can people follow you and all your work with the Sun-Soms, man? You can check me out on social media at Patrick Finley on the big bad social media company there. You can go to suntimes.com. And also we've got a podcast called Hallis Intrigue, spelled just like the family's last name.
You can look that up anywhere you get your podcast. I like that. The big the big bad what social media who what?
The big bad social media company that used to be called Twitter. You can find me at Patrick Finley. They're kind of the less said about the rest of that. The better. I know. I know. Hey, Patrick, thank you. We'll catch you on down the line. OK, that's good.
