Chicago Bears · History

The Chicago Bears are a professional football franchise based in Chicago, Illinois. The club was founded in 1919 in Decatur as the Decatur Staleys and took its present name in 1922. The Bears play in the NFC North and have used Soldier Field as their home ground since 1971, a stadium that opened in 1924 and now has the smallest capacity in the league, about 61,500 seats.

From Decatur to Chicago

The A. E. Staley starch company created the team in 1919 in Decatur, Illinois, and put George Halas in charge as player and coach. In September 1920 the Staleys were at the meeting in Canton, Ohio, held in a car dealership, that founded the American Professional Football Association, renamed the National Football League in 1922. Halas moved the team to Chicago in 1921, won the title as the Chicago Staleys and renamed the club the Bears a year later, reasoning that the city's baseball team were the Cubs and his players were bigger. The Bears and the Arizona Cardinals are the only two charter franchises still operating. Chicago played at Wrigley Field from 1921 to 1970.

Red Grange and the 1925 barnstorming tour

On 22 November 1925 Halas signed Illinois halfback Red Grange days after his last college game. The Bears then played 19 games in 67 days across the country. On 6 December 1925 more than 65,000 people watched Grange face the Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York. The tour pushed professional football beyond the mill towns where it had started. Grange left in 1926 to set up a rival league with his agent, C. C. Pyle, and returned to Chicago in 1929 for six more seasons, by then as a defensive back. His number 77 is retired.

The indoor title game and the 73-0 final

On 18 December 1932 snow forced the title playoff indoors to Chicago Stadium, on an 80-yard field with the walls against the sidelines. The Bears beat the Portsmouth Spartans 9-0. That game produced hash marks, the forward pass from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage and the split of the league into two groups with a championship game. On 8 December 1940 Chicago beat the Washington Redskins 73-0 in the NFL Championship Game, still the widest margin in league history. The Bears used the T formation revived by Halas and Clark Shaughnessy, with Sid Luckman at quarterback and Bronko Nagurski in the backfield. Luckman, drafted in 1939, was league MVP in 1943 and threw seven touchdown passes in a single game on 14 November of that year.

Nine championships

The 1921 title was decided on standings, with no final. The other eight came from a single game.

Monsters of the Midway: Butkus, Sayers and Piccolo

The nickname "Monsters of the Midway" has followed the club since the 1940s. The 1963 title came with a defence run by assistant coach George Allen and anchored by Bill George, credited with inventing the middle linebacker position in 1954. In the 1965 draft Chicago took Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in the first round. On 12 December 1965 Sayers scored six touchdowns in one game against the San Francisco 49ers, a mark nobody has beaten; he entered the Hall of Fame in 1977 at 34, still the youngest inductee. His room-mate Brian Piccolo died of cancer on 16 June 1970 at the age of 26, and the story was filmed in 1971. Halas left the sideline in 1967 after four spells, 40 seasons and 324 wins; he died on 31 October 1983.

Walter Payton

In 1975 the Bears drafted Walter Payton fourth overall out of Jackson State. On 20 November 1977 he ran for 275 yards against the Minnesota Vikings, then a league record for a single game, and he was named MVP that season. Payton played thirteen years, missed one game, and retired in 1987 with 16,726 rushing yards, the NFL record until 2002. He died on 1 November 1999 and the league named its Man of the Year award after him. His number 34 is retired.

Super Bowl XX and the 46 defence

Mike Ditka, a tight end on the 1963 title team and the first player at his position elected to the Hall of Fame, returned as head coach in 1982. With Buddy Ryan as defensive coordinator and his 46 front, the 1985 Bears went 15-1, losing only at Miami on 2 December. They opened the playoffs with two shutouts, 21-0 over the New York Giants and 24-0 over the Los Angeles Rams. On 26 January 1986 in New Orleans they beat the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX. Richard Dent was named the game's most valuable player, and the players carried Ditka and Ryan off the field separately. Mike Singletary was Defensive Player of the Year in 1985 and 1988. Defensive lineman William Perry, known as "The Refrigerator", scored from the one-yard line as a running back. The squad recorded the "Super Bowl Shuffle" before the playoffs began.

Urlacher, Hester and Super Bowl XLI

Brian Urlacher, drafted ninth overall in 2000, was Defensive Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year in 2005 and entered the Hall of Fame in 2018. Under Lovie Smith the Bears went 13-3 in 2006 and reached Super Bowl XLI. On 4 February 2007 in Miami, Devin Hester returned the opening kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown, but the Indianapolis Colts won 29-17. Hester retired with 20 return touchdowns, an NFL record, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2024. In April 2009 the club traded two first-round picks for quarterback Jay Cutler, who remains the leading passer in Bears history.

Soldier Field and Halas Hall

Soldier Field opened in 1924 and was named in 1925 for the dead of the First World War. The Bears moved in from Wrigley Field in 1971. The 2002 and 2003 rebuild dropped a new bowl inside the original colonnades; while the work went on the team played at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, on the University of Illinois campus. The result cost the building its National Historic Landmark status in 2006. The club trains at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, and in February 2023 it bought the Arlington Park racetrack site in Arlington Heights.

Fourteen retired numbers and the Green Bay series

The franchise has 14 retired numbers, more than any other club: among them Nagurski's 3, Halas's 7, Sayers's 40, Luckman's 42, Butkus's 51 and Ditka's 89. It is also one of the franchises with the most members in the Hall of Fame. Johnny Morris, a receiver of the 1960s, is still the club's leader in receiving yards. The series with the Green Bay Packers, first played in 1921, is the most contested in professional football, and the Detroit Lions were the opponent in the first Thanksgiving game Detroit staged, on 29 November 1934. The crowd sings "Bear Down, Chicago Bears", a fight song written in 1941. In the 2024 draft Chicago took USC quarterback Caleb Williams first overall.