{"id":721593,"date":"2026-06-07T19:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721593\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T19:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T19:23:11","slug":"nfl-insider-mike-florio-calls-bears-indiana-stadium-plan-a-bluff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721593\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Insider Mike Florio Calls Bears’ Indiana Stadium Plan a ‘Bluff’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"View\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

NFL insider Mike Florio calls the Bears’ Indiana stadium proposal a “bluff,” questioning whether Chicago is seriously considering a move out of Illinois.<\/p>\n

NFL insider Mike Florio is more than a little skeptical of the Chicago Bears\u2019<\/a> latest stadium proposal. The NBC Sports commentator says the team\u2019s push for a new venue in Indiana is a \u201cbluff,\u201d more about leverage than an actual plan to relocate.<\/p>\n

Florio characterized the Bears\u2019 Indiana proposal as a \u201cbluff\u201d in a report for Pro Football Talk<\/a>, the site Florio founded, suggesting on Sunday that the franchise is using the possibility of a move across state lines to increase pressure on Illinois lawmakers and local officials.<\/p>\n

The founder and editor-in-chief of PFT made the case that the Bears have been running the same play for years, just with different locations serving as the threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Indiana has always been a leverage play. I think it\u2019s always been a bluff. I think Arlington Heights has always been a bluff,\u201d Florio said in an interview with 104.3 The Score<\/a> on Friday. \u201cNow, I know they bought that property, but I think they want to be in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a leverage play to work, it has to look real. The moment Illinois treats Hammond as a bluff out loud, the Bears lose their best chip at the table, Florio explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think behind the scenes, the Bears would like to stay in Chicago if they can,\u201d Florio said in the interview. \u201cThey just know how difficult it\u2019s going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Florio on Bears\u2019 Stadium Bluff: What He Says<\/p>\n

The Bears\u2019 Board of Directors voted Thursday to advance the Hammond proposal, a domed stadium at Wolf Lake that chairman George H. McCaskey and president and CEO Kevin Warren described as capable of transforming the region. ESPN\u2018s Adam Schefter reported that<\/a> one source called it a done deal \u201cbarring anything very strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florio acknowledged the apparent contradiction. The franchise spent $197.2 million on 326 acres in Arlington Heights in February 2023. That\u2019s serious money for a family ownership group without deep cash reserves. He framed even that purchase as part of the same pressure campaign. Arlington Heights was leverage against Chicago. Hammond is leverage against the state of Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two explanations,\u201d Florio said. \u201cEither there\u2019s a method to the apparent madness we\u2019ve witnessed over the past several years, or it\u2019s just madness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it ends up that they build a stadium in Chicago, they\u2019re geniuses,\u201d he added. \u201cWhether it was deliberate or accidental, they\u2019re still geniuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Bears Hammond Stadium Backlash Grows<\/p>\n

The Chicago Tribune\u2018s editorial board blasted the Bears stadium process as an \u201cinsane saga,\u201d accusing Governor JB Pritzker and legislative leaders of choosing \u201cthe worst of all worlds: Profess to want a deal with the Bears, but decline to meet their consistently stated price,\u201d the Tribune editorial board wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Taxes, as they often do, form the core of the controversy. Illinois could not guarantee the Bears a fixed rate on the Arlington Heights acreage. Indiana, on the other hand, moved decisively. Senate Bill 27, signed in February 2026, created a Northwest Indiana stadium authority with roughly $1 billion in taxpayer-backed financing. Illinois\u2019 spring session expired without a deal. Any renewed push now requires a three-fifths supermajority.<\/p>\n

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Scoop Jackson drew a grim analogy. Tax evasion ended legendary Chicago gangster Al Capone\u2019s reign. A property-tax standoff now threatens the Bears\u2019 106-year tenure in the city, Jackson wrote in the Sun-Times<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

A completed move would make Chicago\u2019s NFL franchise the fourth team in the league playing home games outside the state referenced in its name, joining the New York Jets<\/a> and Giants, who play in New Jersey, and the Washington Commanders, whose home stadium sits in Maryland. That distinction is one Florio still does not expect the Bears to earn.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJonathan Vankin<\/a> JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist who covers MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, boxing, golf, and Olympic sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Newspaper and Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering the Olympics, pro baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty NFL insider Mike Florio calls the Bears’ Indiana stadium proposal a “bluff,” questioning whether Chicago is seriously…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-721593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}