Ben Johnson is carrying the Bears, while his bosses keep dropping the ball

LAKE FOREST, Ill. — The Chicago Bears had no grand announcement Thursday about concluding their never-ending stadium imbroglio, but after listening to George McCaskey and Kevin Warren talk again, what remains clear is they are very, very lucky that Ben Johnson took the head coaching job.

Like, fall to their knees and pray at a shrine of Ben Johnson lucky. It’s obvious Johnson is underpaid even at $13 million per year and should be making $50 million, as Caleb Williams will be soon enough.

Because without him, this franchise, led by McCaskey as owner and Warren as team president, remains the joke that fans have tired of laughing at. And yes, that includes Williams, who absolutely needed Johnson (or a coach like him) to realize his vast potential.

GM Ryan Poles has done a fine enough job — his trade that got the Bears the No. 1 pick to acquire Williams will go down as one of the best in Chicago history — but it’s Johnson who can take this team to the top.

On the way to Thursday’s press conference at Halas Hall, Chicago sports radio hosts were still reading excerpts of Dan Pompei’s insightful “day in the life” story on Johnson that ran on The Athletic on Wednesday. Bears fans ate up that story because it gave them something more than hope; it gave them confidence that last season wasn’t a dream and that Johnson, unlike Matt Nagy, wasn’t a mirage.

And in typical Bears fashion, they followed that up with a press conference about a topic that fans hate delivered by two guys they don’t trust.

The big news, such as it was, is that there are officially two sites in Hammond, Ind., under consideration for a world-class stadium and mixed-use development — conveniently located near a slag heap, an oil refinery, and a Superfund site.

“The due diligence at the Lost Marsh site that we talked to you about before is completed,” Warren said during his six-minute opening statement. “And the due diligence is ongoing at the Wolf Lake terminal site. That’s the new site that we’ve been able to find. While we were working on the Lost Marsh Site, we discovered a potentially new site that could even be as good or better than the Lost Marsh site. So we’re in the middle of that due diligence. It’s a lot of work that happens on a daily basis.”

A lot of work. Due diligence. Wake me when something happens.

The Illinois General Assembly’s spring session ended with no legislation to help finalize a deal for tax certainty and infrastructure funding for the Arlington Park property the Bears have owned since February 2023, and Warren and McCaskey said there has been minimal conversation between them and the state since.

Earlier in the day, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said they have been talking and still want to get a deal done either in Arlington Heights or Chicago.

“Our focus, again, at this point in time, is in Hammond, Indiana, and we’re doing everything that we possibly can,” Warren said. “We don’t have any legislation in Illinois. We don’t have a  deal with Illinois, and so it wouldn’t be fair for me to answer a hypothetical question.”

The fall veto session begins in mid-November. Will the Bears wait it out to see if the state will help them stay in Illinois? Indiana wrapped up their end during the NFL combine in March.

“I think it’s proven for us to move with pace based upon where we are,” Warren said. “These costs have gone up. We talked about it before, you know, almost $150 million a year. We just looked at the financial numbers last week, and you compare to where it was last year, these are real issues. … We’re reaching that point where we have to make a determination and decision. The longer this goes on, it creates complications, just from a building operations design standpoint.”

That’s nothing he hasn’t said before over the years. Didn’t they hire him to build a stadium?

“I’ve heard many times that the Bears hired Kevin to build a stadium, and that’s not accurate,” McCaskey said. “We hired him for so many other reasons: His vision, his leadership, his consensus building, his ability to make difficult decisions in difficult times, his ability to see around corners and all of the other many traits he brings to this position, and he’s done an outstanding job for us.”

Meanwhile, in reality, the Bears own an expensive piece of property (and tore down a racetrack) for the sole purpose of building a stadium and mixed-use development and they’re still trying to solve problems that should’ve been fixed before they bought it. Getting a deal of this magnitude done in Illinois is onerous, to be sure, and the state senate is largely to blame for the spring session flameout. But it was Warren’s job to work with Illinois politicians, and now he’s taking soil samples in the Indiana marshland.

So I wanted to know what mistakes they’ve made in the last 3 1/2 years.

“I don’t think we’ve made any mistakes,” Warren said. “As you study these projects, I really look at these as learning opportunities to come together. … I don’t look at it as we’ve made any mistakes. We’ve made the necessary steps at that appropriate time to be where we are today and it’s good to be in a position that we’ll be able to bring this to some closure.”

No mistakes, just learning opportunities. That kind of cockeyed optimism could also describe the parade of failed quarterbacks and leadership that have beset this franchise for decades.

While I appreciated their due diligence in answering questions, I hope Bears fans don’t have to hear from these two about anything for the next few months. No one should complain about seeing Warren in a locker room celebration video because that means the Bears are winning.

Warren, McCaskey and their cohort can keep doing their due diligence on the stadium front. Keep kicking that RC Cola can down the road.

I’d suggest they put Johnson in charge of the stadium because he’d knock out between his second and sixth cups of coffee on a Tuesday, but he’s busy enough carrying this franchise where it counts, on the field.