{"id":897707,"date":"2026-05-22T00:15:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/897707\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T00:15:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:15:22","slug":"bears-confirm-staying-in-chicago-is-not-an-option-there-is-not-a-viable-site-in-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/897707\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears confirm staying in Chicago is not an option; &#8220;There is not a viable site in the city&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Bears are throwing cold water on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/jb-pritzker-brandon-johnson-bears-stadium-chicago\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mayor Brandon Johnson&#8217;s bid to keep them in Chicago<\/a> as the team seeks a new stadium.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Chicago Bears have exhausted every opportunity to stay in Chicago, which was our initial goal.\u00a0 There is not a viable site in the city.\u00a0 As a result, the only sites under consideration are in Arlington Heights and Hammond,&#8221; the team said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The Bears have repeatedly insisted in recent weeks that they are only considering Arlington Heights and Hammond as options for a new stadium, but Johnson has insisted Chicago is still a viable option. <\/p>\n<p>The team&#8217;s latest statement made it clear the Bears want Johnson to stop interjecting himself in stadium talks as Illinois state lawmakers debate a so-called &#8220;megaprojects bill&#8221; that would help the Bears build a new stadium in Arlington Heights.<\/p>\n<p>Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) said earlier this week that state lawmakers are working daily to keep the Bears in Illinois. <\/p>\n<p>Gov. JB Pritzker and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/illinois-house-lays-out-new-version-of-bears-megaprojects-bill\/\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">state lawmakers have been negotiating legislation that would provide property tax breaks for new Bears stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Pritzker said he expects a deal to be done before the end of the spring legislative session on May 31, and also has chastised Johnson for claiming that Chicago is still a viable option for the Bears.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are three years in now, and he still has no plan,&#8221; Pritzker said earlier this week. &#8220;The mayor has no plan. He has come up with no plan at all about how the Bears would end up in the city of Chicago. So that&#8217;s problematic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also said this week that, when the Bears briefed NFL owners on their pursuit for a new stadium, the only options on the table were Arlington Heights and Hammond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bears are throwing cold water on Mayor Brandon Johnson&#8217;s bid to keep them in Chicago as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[10654,374,692,391,2493,7,109665,6],"class_list":["post-897707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bears","tag-arlington-heights","tag-bears","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bears","tag-chicagobears","tag-football","tag-hammond-indiana","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116615349786271718","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}