r/BernsteinUnfiltered

For those that don't know baseball stats, that means 93% better than league average, adjusted for many different factors. I am glad that Dan is finally buying into the White Sox hype, but statements like these show me that he still isn't regularly watching games and following the team. Grichuk has been one of our best weapons to utilize against lefties this year.

The term “con man” is shorthand for confidence man — someone who gains the trust of others through charm, manufactured credibility, and carefully constructed promises, then uses that trust to advance his own agenda. The con man doesn’t need to lie about everything. In fact, the best ones mix truth with misdirection so skillfully that by the time the marks realize what happened, the con man has already moved on to the next play.

The classic con has identifiable stages: establish credibility, make the pitch, manufacture urgency, string along the marks when things stall, and — crucially — never be accountable when promises evaporate. By every measure that matters, Kevin Warren has run this play on virtually everyone connected to the Chicago Bears stadium saga.

The McCaskey family hired Kevin Warren for one reason. They thought they were getting a savvy politician — a stadium builder.  Warren had been the Big Ten commissioner and had been involved in the Minnesota Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium project. On paper, he looked like exactly the man for the job. Their focus had already shifted toward building a new stadium next to Soldier Field after Warren was hired as president in 2023 to replace the retiring Ted Phillips. 

That is where the con begins. Warren was hired to deliver a stadium. Instead, what he delivered was three years of pivots, phantom deadlines, and open letters that read more like hostage notes than business plans.

Con #1: Abandoning Arlington Heights the Moment He Arrived

The Bears had already done the hard work before Warren walked in the door. In September 2022, the Bears unveiled a nearly $5 billion plan for Arlington Heights that called for restaurants, retail and more, when they were finalizing the purchase of that 326-acre site.  The team owned the land. The plan was in place. Warren’s job was to execute it.

Instead, at an NFL owners meeting, Warren declared his intentions on keeping the team’s stadium on the lakefront, saying “The plan will be to put a shovel in the ground on the lakefront.”  He then pivoted the entire organization toward a lakefront dome adjacent to Soldier Field — abandoning the Arlington Heights plan that ownership had spent years and $197 million building toward, without any guarantee the lakefront plan was legally viable.

It wasn’t. It never was. The lakefront site was — and always had been — protected by the Illinois Public Trust Doctrine and the 1973 Lakefront Protection Ordinance. Friends of the Parks had already beaten George Lucas in federal court over the exact same parcel of land. Warren either didn’t know this or didn’t care. Either way, he sold the McCaskey family and Bears fans on a vision he had no realistic path to delivering.

Con #2: The Lakefront Circus of April 2024

On the eve of the 2024 NFL Draft, Warren held a news conference declaring that building a new dome adjacent to Soldier Field was the Bears’ preferred option.  The timing was deliberate — maximum media attention, maximum fan excitement. Warren called the south lot “the most beautiful piece of property in the United States.” 

The proposal asked for $2.4 billion in public subsidies. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called their initial pitch for financing “a nonstarter.” House Speaker Chris Welch said a vote on that pitch “would fail.”  The legal obstacles from Friends of the Parks were immediate and predictable to anyone who had done basic homework. Warren had to have known the proposal was going nowhere before he stood at that podium. He made the pitch anyway — to fans, to the city, to legislators — knowing it would fail.

Con #3: The Fake Urgency Machine

Throughout the entire saga, Warren deployed manufactured deadlines as a pressure tactic. Warren said repeatedly he wanted to break ground by December 31 of 2025. In August 2025, he said the Bears were “ready now” to build in Arlington Heights.  Warren wanted shovels in the ground by the end of 2025. That obviously didn’t happen. 

When the deadlines passed with nothing to show, Warren simply reset the clock and announced a new timeline. This is textbook con artistry — urgency is the con man’s best friend because it prevents marks from stopping to think clearly. Bears fans, city officials, and state legislators were perpetually told the moment of decision was right now — while Warren quietly moved the goalposts.

Con #4: The Indiana Gambit — Played on Everyone at Once

In December 2025, Warren sent an open letter to fans announcing the Bears would expand their search to include Northwest Indiana, writing: “This is not about leverage.”  The fact that he felt compelled to say it wasn’t about leverage was itself a tell. Warren’s declaration that the Bears would look outside Cook County rained on what was supposed to be the most thrilling week of the most exciting year the Bears had since 2018 — he dropped the Indiana bomb in the middle of Packers Week. 

The timing wasn’t an accident. State Representative Kam Buckner called Warren out for his constant tone-deaf decisions to announce new stadium updates during important events — noting this wasn’t even the first time. 

But the deeper con was what followed. Shortly after the Indiana announcement, the Bears released a statement applauding Indiana for passing a bill intended to fund a new stadium district in Hammond — a public statement that caught Springfield by surprise, and many viewed it as a tasteless move by Warren.  According to reports, Warren was not even present at a meeting with Illinois state officials where the team and state officials “mostly agreed on a bill.” Governor Pritzker confirmed Warren “chose not to be in that meeting.” 

He was running a play on Indiana and Illinois simultaneously — and getting caught doing it by his own boss.

Con #5: Selling the McCaskeys a Bill of Goods

The ultimate irony is that Warren’s most successful con may have been on the family that hired him. Bears owner George McCaskey is livid with his president and CEO for his handling of the stadium situation. Reports have the McCaskey family is very, very angry.  The McCaskey family felt the man sold them a bill of goods. Three years later, not much has changed — the Bears still own the land but haven’t made any progress, and it has gotten so bad that they’re now threatening to leave Illinois for the first time in over a century of existence, all because Warren bungled the entire process. 

Reports indicate Warren hired a lot of lobbyists who know their way around Springfield, but he was told over and over again that Warren didn’t listen to them.  A man hired specifically for his political skills, surrounded by people who knew how Springfield worked, ignored their advice.

The Victims of the Con

The roster of people Kevin Warren has misled is remarkable in its breadth:

Bears fans were sold a world-class lakefront dome that was legally impossible. Then they were sold a pristine Arlington Heights campus with a 2025 groundbreaking. Then they were told Indiana might be home — announced during the most important game week of the year.

The city of Chicago invested political capital — Mayor Brandon Johnson staked real credibility on the lakefront proposal — for a plan Warren knew was legally untenable.

Illinois legislators spent session time and political energy on stadium financing packages for a team whose president was simultaneously courting Indiana and skipping meetings in Springfield.

Indiana and Hammond officials moved quickly, passed legislation, and authorized over a billion in taxpayer dollars for a team that as of April 2026 still couldn’t say in which state they’ll build the stadium — five years into the process. 

The McCaskey family borrowed credibility from a century of Chicago history to back a hire who, by most accounts, has delivered three years of chaos where he promised certainty.

The Final Verdict

When George McCaskey hired Warren — the stadium builder with the Vikings, the former Big Ten commissioner — it was with the stadium in mind. It’s not likely McCaskey ever thought he brought Warren in to build him a stadium in Indiana on a slag heap. 

A con man doesn’t need to steal money. Sometimes the con is stealing time, trust, and opportunity — leaving everyone around him holding the bag while he issues another open letter explaining why none of it is his fault. Kevin Warren has been extraordinarily good at exactly that.

The Chicago Bears will not stay in Chicago. They will not get Soldier Field — it cannot be sold or transferred under any legal framework that exists. And the man who was supposed to deliver a new home has instead delivered three years of misdirection, missed deadlines, and burned bridges in two states.

That’s not bad luck. That’s the con.

CanuckBoy

I know DB was a big fan of Stacey as a person and definitely as a broadcaster.

He was fun, entertaining, smart, and exceedingly unique. I wasn't really into the bulls after the rose era starting all the way when the bulls were losing to the bad boy pistons but I tuned in every once in a while just to listen to Stacey and Adam.

Chicago is a little less bright today.

Too big, too fast, too good, gone too soon... Rip.

Not to be conspiratorial but this doesn't seem to be a coincidence.

He maintains that a publicly funded stadium is bad for the tax payer, but also wants the Bears/Warren to get a deal done with the IL legislature. So which is it?

I did it!