Last week, Ty Dunne of GoLongTD.com wrote an explosive story about Caleb Williams, Ryan Poles, and the Chicago Bears’ dysfunctional 2024 season.
Dunne had several unnamed sources who were members of the Chicago Bears front office and coaching staff in 2024 that painted a picture that they were forced to handle Caleb Williams with kid gloves, that his work ethic was questionable, and that the coaching staff didn’t hold him accountable. The piece also suggested that Williams might be dyslexic based
on observations from coaches, but did not demonstrate any evidence that he was.
Dunne’s piece also discussed the work of Ryan Poles, saying he rigged the draft process for Caleb Williams and didn’t consider opposing viewpoints, that Poles has been difficult to work with in the building, that he isn’t well-liked among media circles, and questioned the leadership styles of both Kevin Warren and George McCaskey.
Fans didn’t really take issue with any of the reporting on Poles, Warren, or McCaskey, but the reporting on Caleb Williams angered many. Why use coaches at sources that have an axe to grind with Caleb Williams and the Bears? Why even suggest that Williams might have a learning disability without showing any demonstrative proof? Why didn’t you give more column space to the other side of the story?
Fans had questions. Well, Ty Dunne joined the Bears Banter Podcast and attempted to answer those questions.
This interview was not an opportunity to tee up Dunne and let him further go into detail on his story. This interview was to ask Dunne about the choices he made in the piece and if he thinks the piece holds up journalistically.
Dunne was asked the questions you wanted answers to. Here’s his response to the concern of coaches having an axe to grind with the Bears and Caleb Williams when giving their viewpoint on the 2024 season.
This is a side of the story that nobody has heard at all… I think [the 2024 coaches’] perspective matters. How can you understand where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been in life? So yeah, I reached out to all these coaches to learn what happened last season. I think we all saw the destruction. We saw the Bears fire a head coach, for the first time ever, in 105 or 106 years, in the middle of a season. They have to promote Thomas Brown as an interim coach and at that point it’s just an unwinnable situation. All of these heartbreaking last second defeats, all with a quaterback that we thought was going to be trancendant. All while Jayden Daniels is winning 12 games with the Washington Commanders and taking them to the NFC Championship game. To me, I want to learn. I want to call one person, and then another person, and another person and see where it goes… When it came out that Caleb Williams is making it known that these coaches didn’t help me watch film, yeah, yeah, they’re pissed off. What do you want me to say? They’re upset about that. Because to them, it’s an attack on their ability to do their jobs and what really happened last season… When all this stuff is going on, and they know what happened, and they know the players wanted the backup quarterback to start, and they know the GM said, “Hell no,” in so many words, they see a value in the public understanding what happened behind the scenes. Look, if you want to say, “Sour grapes,” that’s fine, there’s probably some of that going on for sure, you know, they got fired.
If you do want to hear about Dunne’s process and why this article was published, you can check out the interview on the 2nd City Gridiron YouTube Page here:
If you want to listen to the full podcast with Tyler Dunne, you can do that on the 2nd City Gridiron Podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts, or use the player below:
