Yeah, that whole complex looks amazing, but the Bears have to own their stadium to increase value and revenue.
NFL Thread 2022-2023
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Begs the question why they didn’t do this 20 years ago.
Chicago Unveils $2.2B Domed Soldier Field Plan to Keep Bears
Landmark Development released a six minute virtual tour of a revamped Soldier Field in an effort to keep the Chicago Bears in the city.frontofficesports.com
Subquestion: if they do go forward with this renovation, will the NFL return to Champaign?
illini80
- Forgottonia
I’m not sure they loved their experience in CU. Of course i don’t know what other options they really have for a stadium that can hold decent crowds.
Captain 14
- The Last Best Place
I did LOL
I'm wondering how aggressive the Bears get here. Do we go after big contract guys through our trades and cap space? Or do we keep stacking assets, saving money, and stay flexible.
We have so many holes to fill, it seems impossible that we could jump into Super Bowl contenders in one offseason. But it seems like the smart play to try to win now while Fields is still healthy and cheap.
We have so many holes to fill, it seems impossible that we could jump into Super Bowl contenders in one offseason. But it seems like the smart play to try to win now while Fields is still healthy and cheap.
I figure they’re going to try to get 8 to 9 immediate starters through the draft or free agency. 2 or 3 OL, 1-2 WRs, at least 4 guys in the defensive front 7, maybe a running back or fullback.
To make that happen, I think they want two of those starters to come by trading the #1 pick, whether they get more picks or established players in return.
A third starter - likely an o-lineman - can come in the 2nd or 3rd round.
The rest gets filled in via free agency while the remainder of the draft goes towards immediate roster depth and guys who might start later.
There are 55-ish players in an NFL roster and the Bears will be turning over at least a third of that number, hopefully with nothing but better players.
If I were the Bears, I would try to trade the 1st pick to the Texans for their 2nd and 12th pick and maybe a future 2nd or 3rd round pick. That would ensure them of drafting either Will Anderson or Jalen Carter. That all depends though if they like Anderson or Carter more, however I think Anderson is better than Carter and the Cardinals would take him so if the Bears like Anderson more they should do all they can to beat out the Cardinals for him. With the 12th pick, a WR or an OL will still be available. They can also stay with the 1st pick but they could use the additional assets to fill other holes.
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A desperate team is going to come calling for the pick….
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The Bears control the draft, the free agent market and the trade market.
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KBLEE
- Montgomery, IL
Saw an interview with a guy who has been involved in most of the NFL stadium construction projects of the last 20 years and he said this is basically a Hail Mary from the city of Chicago. It is unlikely they Bears will be swayed by this at all.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Some of the criticism of Ryan Pace gets a little silly but there is no doubt he would out-think himself and make a mess of this situation. I hope Poles does better. He's playing a strong hand and this is the right public face to be putting out there.
Nine zillion things are going to leak about the process, 30% of which will be true. The end result is all that matters.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
It's not even aimed at the Bears, it's PR directed at the city's residents.
Any version of the Bears staying in the city would involve the team buying the Soldier Field property and redeveloping it themselves. It has never seemed like either party is super interested in that. Arlington Heights is a foregone conclusion at this point.
As a city resident, my interest is more in what can be done with that area when the Bears are gone. The museum campus and that part of the lakeshore are such a gem, but so isolated from transit and the adjoining neighborhood, it's a really underutilized part of the city.
Genuinely asking as a Bears fan who has become less invested in the team over the past decade, how so?
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I mean it's the usual stuff any time a change of GM takes place, the idea that any players from the old regime are useless.
To be fair it has been less pronounced than I thought it would be. More of that scorn is going Matt Nagy's way, also slightly overstated and unfair. But the Bears are better off without both of them.
Now the real test of Poles and Eberflus arrives.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
yup thats all this is about. So Lightfoot can say she tried
the Bears are gone . That ship has sailed and nothing the city can/could do once the horse track went up for sail 20 months ago.
All the Bears need to do is borrow the owners manual from the Rams for a few years and basically copy that.
The City can't afford to build the dome without a NFL team playing there. Soccer cant afford it and no way with the city assume all the risk with the hope they can out outbid the Bears in 10 years for a bowl game, the CFP, Super Bowls and Final Fours. Thats what the new AH stadium will do.
SF will be relegated to stay as it is, open air, and host a couple college games in the fall , MLS soccer, some concerts in summer and tractor pulls/monster truck/ BMX motocross deals .
KInd of a shame, but they can only blame themselves. Totally goofed it up in 2002-2004. Thanks Richie
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
The first non-dumpster fire end of season press conference from the Bears in about three years.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I don't think that's the only option by a long shot. There would be huge demand to redevelop the area with the proper arrangements, which would have to involve some bridging over the Metra tracks between Roosevelt and 18th, as that stadium rendering video already does.
And of course the Northerly Island concert venue was always intended to be temporary, but there's a lot of demand for an outdoor venue of that size in the city.
There are all sorts of assets that all converge on that little area, but none of it is connected to each other in a way that flows. The Bears leaving (less traffic, less parking demand, the ability to combine two event facilities into one, the opening up of a ton of lakefront space) present a huge opportunity to make that better and there's lot of private money that would jump at the chance to be a part of it.
Make it so, Mayor Chuy
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
it’ll never happen
Illinir1
- Camdenton, MO
It is mind boggling to see how much money he has been paid to NOT coach after being terminated by the Bears, Tampa Bay, Illinois, and now the Texans. My research sugests Bears $5Mil, Tampa Bay $6M (would have been $10M if he didn't take the Illinois job), Illinois $2.3Mil, Texans $15M (3 yrs remaining @ $5M/Yr). That's $28.3Mil to NOT coach!!! Good work if you can get it.
Biggest difference between Poles and Pace is that Poles is actually willing to meet with the media at different points in the season and not just at the end-of-year presser. There was always a picture they used to show of Pace peaking around the corner during some presser but he never was actually the one out there taking questions.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
No one on earth is as smart as Pace thought he was. That's kind of a common personality trait in scouting, especially in football, but Pace took it too far.
The long Tribune feature on the process of drafting Mitch Trubisky is a really enraging read. They were so much more focused on keeping other teams off the scent of their intentions than they were on actually scouting the QB class.
At the time there was a new dome proposed as part of McCormick Place (McDome), however there was a lot of pushback with things like the Bears should only play on grass and the Bears should play outside in 'Bearweather'. Modifying Soldier Field as they did was controversial enough. There was plenty of hyperventilating by the historic preservation folks and Soldier Field was stripped of its listing on the National Register of Historic Places. So, this proposal which takes from the original integrity of the stadium even more would have been out of the question.
I am not a huge Bears fan but, I will say this concept of adding a dome looks pretty appealing. The Bears thus far seem to be bungling their Arlington Heights proposal and have no experience at all in pulling off a massive project like that. I envision that an Arlington Heights Stadium will be a banal stadium and surroundings with corners cut. There just isn't the critical mass of people nearby to sustain the energy they are hoping for. On the other hand, the state has no business giving Robert Dunn any of the $6.5 billion he requested for his companion One Central project.
KBLEE
- Montgomery, IL
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Yeah the relevant design stuff was happening in like 2000-2001 which was just a very different time in terms of the thinking around what an NFL facility could and should be.
Jerry Jones' Cowboys project was a game-changer, but that was still years away at that point.
A SF dome would have cost way, way more, and the use case for that sort of facility wasn't clear yet. The CFP didn't exist, the process by which a facility like that could be selected for the Final Four was speculative, etc.
It lacked foresight to do what they did, the city of Detroit opened Ford Field at around the same time, so it's not like this was an impossible idea, but it was a different viewpoint back then.
The thing is, the Bears play 10 events a year in Soldier Field, for whom the attendees are people who drive in from the suburbs, park, and drive out. It's not that big of a deal in terms of bringing people and commerce into the city (very different from Wrigley in that respect).
But when you combine McCormick Place, the new DePaul arena, the Northerly Island pavilion, Soldier Field, the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium and the Planetarium, there are millions upon millions of people coming through that area annually and none of these things are connected in a way that makes sense. It could be so much more.
I thought Pace’s biggest flaw was not properly valuing players and/or becoming overly enamored with players such that he was willing to overpay. Call it the scout’s fallacy.
Maybe Trubisky is your top guy, but you have a better chance at constructing a successful roster drafting your number 2 QB and keeping the extra picks (obviously a little hindsight here as Trubisky didn’t work out but the point is solid I think). And you are more likely to build a successful roster with a player that is 70% of what Mack was but at 50% of the price.
I think Pace had his scouting goggles on when evaluating talent and if he saw a player he loved he had to have him. Full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes. Not enough focus on the cap.
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