If you're even a little familiar with Chicago, you understand how much the city bleeds navy blue and orange for its Chicago Bears.
The NFL's charter franchise, more than any other sports team in the city, is a Chicago institution. They are a beloved pillar of the community, bringing everyone in the greater metropolitan area together to celebrate (or complain about) every fall and winter. When the Bears are great, the whole city feels a persistent, humming buzz for almost half the calendar year. They are one of the few things that can melt Chicago out of a deep freeze in January and February. If you disagree, I dare you to find any native Chicagoan or someone from the near suburbs who doesn't have some kind of opinion about the football-playing
ursines, even if they're not a die-hard fan. Rest assured, you will fail.
As a Chicagoan myself, I bring this up because there seems to be an out-of-town incredulity (naivety?) about something Caleb Williams said after the Bears' 34-17 blowout win over the Seahawks on Monday night. When ESPN's Scott Van Pelt asked Williams to speak to the idea that the Bears have an iron grip over the city when they're a Super Bowl contender (as they are right now), the star quarterback invoked Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls dynasty in a fitting way.
Williams maintained that when he was drafted in 2024, he learned quickly about how much Chicago cherishes the Bears compared to everyone else. He said that he was told that even amid the Bulls' incredible 1990s dynasty featuring six NBA championships with Jordan, the Bears were and still are more loved by people from Chicagoland. They have no close competition, in fact.
And to be 1,000,000 percent clear: Williams is correct.
This didn't sit well with ESPN's Chris Canty, who tried to make fun of Williams for saying Chicago loves the Bears more than Jordan's Bulls on Tuesday's episode of First Take.
Canty tried to spin Williams' comments as his being overconfident and arrogant, rather than that he was speaking a truth every Chicagoan would agree with without hesitation. Ah, yes, everyone should listen to what someone like Canty thinks about Chicago's sports culture — a former NFL player who was born in New York City, who was raised in North Carolina, who went to college in Virginia, who spent his professional playing days nowhere near Chicago, and who now works out of New York City as a media personality — compared to the bright young quarterback who has embraced Chicago sports fans and the tremendous responsibility of one of the toughest jobs in professional sports like almost no one else.
"You ain't gotta go to the place of talking about Michael Jordan." @ChrisCanty99 responds to Caleb Williams' comments after the Bears' win in Seattle 👀 pic.twitter.com/DIbP8mnzSE
— First Take (@FirstTake) November 3, 2026
The best way I can describe the distinction between Chicago's love for the Bears and all of its other sports teams, including Jordan's Bulls, is simple. Jordan's Bulls are a global icon. Even beyond basketball, never, ever coming first in the beautiful city, Jordan's Bulls don't belong to us. They never have, and they never will. They were and are bigger outside of the city, to be sure, which is why someone like Canty with no Chicago connection was beside himself about Williams' accurate assessment.
By contrast, we Chicagoans view the Bears as one of our few greatest domestic cultural exports. They are woven into the fabric of what we think makes our city special to its very core. We treat them like our own, because they are ours. We take any perceived disrespect to them so personally, as if you insulted one of our immediate family members (take this column, for example). Look no further than how we still talk about the last Bears championship team from four decades ago. Think about it: Those Bears became forever immortal off one title. One. There's a good reason one of Saturday Night Live's most famous recurring skits is rooted in what that Bears team accomplished and why it's still so relevant today.
The skit is a bit stereotypical and played up for TV, but it's otherwise not that far off from reality in how we act when it comes to the Bears.
While I obviously think they're capable, I can't guarantee Williams' Bears will win a Super Bowl. What I can say for certain is that, if they do, the entire Chicagoland area would shut down for weeks just to celebrate its treasured professional football team reaching the NFL's tallest summit. Every person on that team would become legends in their own right. Full stop.
The Bears are royalty in Chicago. No one else has their power in the city. And no one else ever will.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Yes, a Bears Super Bowl is bigger than Michael Jordan to Chicago
