Fans know where the Chicago Bears stadium saga stands by now. The push to get legislation passed in Springfield this spring fell short. The megaprojects bill was shot down in the Senate, and a revised bill focused on just the Bears did pass, but wasn’t voted on when it was sent back to the House. Left with no immediate hope of getting something done, the team opted to shift its focus to Hammond, Indiana. It was even voted on by the team’s board of directors, which felt like a significant domino to fall.

Some in Illinois have started panicking, believing time is running out to rescue the situation before it’s too late. House representative Kam Buckner is not one of them. He’s been working directly with the Bears for several months on getting the needed legislation passed. While May didn’t end how they wanted, he isn’t sweating their recent pivot. To him, it’s nothing more than another leverage play meant to urge more action in Springfield. How does he know this? Buckner’s own conversations with the team before and after the announcement.

“When you look at statements like this, it wasn’t a press conference in the state of Indiana with a ticker-tape parade. It was a Friday afternoon news dump that really had not a whole lot built around it. So I’m still confident that we’re going to find a way to get this done.”

It’s a fair point. The Chicago Bears still haven’t fully committed.

Even reports right after the announcement went through revealed that team president Kevin Warren had communicated with Illinois lawmakers that he looked forward to continuing negotiations with them. Buckner’s stance carries a lot of weight. The Bears have done nothing to indicate that any final decision has been made. They haven’t even picked a specific sight yet. Reports say they’re evaluating two of them in Hammond, and even if they present problems because of local environmental protections.

The only people who are doing victory laps are Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott and Indiana Governor Mike Braun. Both seem utterly certain that Illinois blew its last chance. It is a foregone conclusion that the Bears are crossing the border. The only thing left to determine is a location. Based on everything we’ve seen up to this point, such an assumption is ill-advised. This is far from over. Buckner has negotiated stadium deals before. He has a strong grasp of how this stuff works. If he thinks the Bears remain hopeful of an Illinois resolution, then that is probably true.

Many factors are at play here.

Start with the easiest. The Chicago Bears already own the property in Arlington Heights. The sale has long been concluded, and they’ve been negotiating with the local government and school districts about property taxes for over a year. It is believed they have a deal in place. All they need is legislation from the state to make it legal. If that bill had gone through in May, the team would likely already be starting construction. Letting things die right before the finish line feels too much like surrender.

Then there is the moral factor. The Bears have been an Illinois institution for over a century. George McCaskey is the grandson of George Halas himself. Leaving the state they’ve called home for so long doesn’t feel like the kind of legacy that ownership wants to leave behind. This is why the door remains open even now. Buckner, who is a Chicago native himself, likely senses this. It isn’t over yet. A solution is close. All they have to do is get enough people on the same page. That takes time.

Chicago Bears fans love an underdog story. It’s been that way for ages. That is why every year it feels like a particular name emerges during training camp that they can’t help but root for. Everybody remembers Dane Sanzenbacher and Tanner Gentry. More recently, that honor belonged to Jahdae Walker, an undrafted rookie out of Texas A&M who went on to catch one of the most important touchdowns in franchise history against Green Bay. Fans love these stories because they embody the classic American dream. Rags to riches, etc.

That begs the obvious question. Who will be the player to claim that title this year? There is no shortage of possibilities. Chicago signed several undrafted free agents. Maybe it will be Kennesaw State running back Coleman Bennett or Michigan State wide receiver Omari Kelly. However, a recent move by the team may have found a possible frontrunner. That is Kaden Davis, a recent standout of the United Football League as both a wide receiver and return man.

Davis is a classic Chicago Bears training camp type.

He checks all the boxes: undersized, wide receiver, white, a former undrafted free agent, and has delivered constant flashes despite limited opportunities. His story is a wild one. He emerged on the college scene at Butler Community College, passed up an opportunity at Kansas State to get a full scholarship at Northwest Missouri State, a Division II school. He went for 700 yards and 10 touchdowns as a senior. That earned him an undrafted contract with Denver, but he failed to make the roster.

Davis moved to the UFL in 2023 and had 416 total yards with two touchdowns in just five games for the Michigan Panthers. He bounced around various practice squads over the next few years before landing in Cleveland, where he earned a few callups to the main roster with the Browns. A coaching change there compelled him to head back to the UFL, where he joined the Houston Gamblers. He produced 10 returns for 275 yards on the season. It is a safe assumption why the Bears chose to sign him.

Is Davis a response to unexpected events?

Going into the summer, the feeling was that the Chicago Bears would likely hand their return duties to 3rd round rookie Zavion Thomas. That was something he excelled at for LSU and it’d be a great way to get him some experience since offensive snaps would be limited. That plan may have changed. Thomas reportedly looked great in OTAs and minicamps. It is possible the coaches now feel they may have to widen their offensive plans to include him. This would naturally take away from his ability to be a full-time returner.

In such a situation, it would make sense to seek out some depth at the position. That is where Davis comes in. He could give the Bears an alternative in the return game, allowing Thomas and Kalif Raymond to focus more on their offensive duties. Much depends on how the 27-year-old handles training camp. It could prove difficult. Coach Johnson’s camps are notoriously rigorous. Davis just spent all spring playing actual full-contact games. Is his body up to it? Time will tell.

Wide receiver Kalif Raymond left the Detroit Lions after multiple productive seasons, primarily as a kick returner. One of the reasons for this was his desire to play more on offense, which was becoming difficult in Detroit’s crowded receiver room. The Chicago Bears offered an intriguing opportunity. Not only did they have need for a veteran presence at the position after losing D.J. Moore to a trade, but also desired help in the return game. It was a perfect fit. However, that wasn’t the primary reason Raymond accepted their offer. It was a chance to reunite with Ben Johnson.

The receiver has been effusive with his praise for the Bears head coach since arriving. He sees Johnson as one of the premier offensive minds in the game and somebody who gets everybody involved. It was one of the reasons Raymond loved playing for him in Detroit. He was asked about it during an interview on NFL Network. His response raised a topic that isn’t talked about nearly enough with good coaches. Raymond believes Johnson is particularly great at using players to their strengths.

Ben Johnson sounds like a Joe Gibbs type.

Plenty of names have been mentioned as a comparison for the Bears head coach since he arrived. Sean Payton, Bill Parcells, and Mike Shanahan. However, when you look at style and approach, the Washington Redskins legend is an excellent parallel. Gibbs developed a reputation in the 1980s as one of the most adaptable head coaches of all time, winning three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks. Those quarterbacks weren’t the same stylistically either. You had the mobile Joe Theismann and the pocket-oriented Mark Rypien.

Rather than force them into a specific scheme, Gibbs adjusted his system to fit what they did best. For Theisman, he had moving pockets built off the run game. For Rypien, he slid extra blockers in and max protected, allowing the strong-armed quarterback to attack downfield. Gibbs summed this philosophy up in a single sentence.

“You don’t win with X’s and O’s. What you win with is people.”

While it’s true Ben Johnson is a mastermind at crafting plays, his ability to adjust his system on the fly can’t be overstated. Remember, he went from the pure pocket passer Jared Goff in 2024 to the ultra-mobile Caleb Williams in 2025 and made the playoffs with both.

At their core, both men were the same.

While Gibbs was known for his adaptability, he still molded everything around a strong, consistent ground attack. Ben Johnson is the same. He’ll constantly innovate and expand his creativity, but one thing won’t change. His identity is running the ball. That is why both men are successful. They understand how to walk the fine line between adaptability and maintaining a clear identity. It isn’t a secret why Johnson constantly targets players who can do more than one thing. Versatility makes adaptability far easier.

Raymond learned that across three years with the Bears’ head coach. Now we’ll get to see how he fits into this offense. Based on what we know about Johnson, he’ll seek ways to get the ball in his hands quickly. That will allow the receiver to utilize his speed and vision as a return man to maximum effect. This, in turn, will force defenses to tilt coverage toward him, allowing Rome Odunze and Luther Burden to find more openings.

The big selling point with Kevin Warren when the Chicago Bears hired him to replace Ted Phillips as team president was his experience in getting a stadium built. He’d played a central role in that with the Minnesota Vikings when they built U.S. Bank Stadium several years ago. George McCaskey and the other owners felt that experience would be crucial to them finally getting their own new stadium off the ground in Illinois. What has followed is four years of spinning wheels in the mud.

Warren has no progress to show in that time. The Bears have pivoted multiple times from one stadium site to another, promising shovels in the ground by 2025. Then 2026. Now it’s probably not happening until at least 2027. Every legislative push in Springfield has been stymied. Even his supposed backup plan in Hammond, Indiana, has run into problems due to environmental protection. Everything about the process has felt half-baked from the beginning. Is Warren really that inept? Sports Mockery insider Jeff Hughes provided details on the man in his latest podcast episode.

Kevin Warren has no concept of actual leadership.

“And Kevin comes in with a resume of never having really successfully run any organization and no football acumen. He’s worked on the periphery of football. And from day one, when he got here, I started hearing complaints from inside the building about how dysfunctional the offices were. And while I’m hearing that, he’s on self-promotional tours of his work ethic. Kevin Warren is very, very good at selling you Kevin Warren…

…But you’re seeing in how the stadium situation is playing out the two deficiencies of Kevin Warren. Number one, he is an awful politician. He is completely ill-equipped to play the game he is playing now. But number two, he is obsessed with everything being in full view. And the way you get these kinds of deals done at the governmental level is behind closed doors. You never want the public to see how the sausage is made because as soon as they see how their money is being spent on these stadiums and the infrastructure, they’re going to revolt because it’s insane and it’s theft…

…Because as soon as you let this play out for years, you have the kind of debates on social media and on talk radio that you have now. And now the scrutiny on this building, wherever they put it, will be insane. That’s the mistake Kevin Warren has made. And it’s amateur hour. He’s a terrible team president. He’s terrible at his job.”

“All hat, no cattle.”

That is an idiom used to describe people like Kevin Warren. They’re all talk, loving to put on a public show that they’re getting things done. Then, when you actually pay attention, they are accomplishing nothing. This describes the Bears president perfectly. He’ll sell you on a grand vision and why he is the perfect man to bring it to life. Then, when actual work has to get done, it’s like watching an 8th grader trying to do college calculus without having studied. Painful and endless.

The worst part is? The Bears are stuck with him. It is too late in the process to make a change now. Hiring a new president would require giving them added time to get familiar with where things are at and then deciding how to proceed. The McCaskeys have already lost too much time as it is. Warren might be inept, but removing him does more harm than good now. The best thing to do is stick it out, hope this thing gets done in the near future, and then worry about firing him after the dust settles.

Warren should be grateful the McCaskeys are so patient.

Other owners probably would’ve dumped him already. If fans can tell he has no grasp of the job, you can bet the person who owns the team does too. Yet the McCaskeys have always operated in a way that resists change. They don’t like making sudden pivots. It is why they stuck with guys like Matt Eberflus, Ryan Pace, and Dave Wannstedt way longer than they should’ve. Kevin Warren is the same. He has done nothing for the team’s bottom line. If anything, he has brought more unwanted attention down on their heads than necessary.

Ted Phillips never did stuff like that. Say what you want about the former president. At least he seemed to have strong business acumen and a basic understanding of the pitfalls of media coverage. Warren has operated under a credo of there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Yet all the evidence to this point says the people he’s trying to negotiate with don’t appreciate his constant attention-seeking behavior. That is why all the failures to this point should be tied back to him.