Hell has frozen over. The Bears will be on “Hard Knocks.”
Despite chairman George McCaskey’s long-standing opposition to the team appearing on HBO’s training-camp documentary series, the Bears were named the featured team Thursday afternoon. They’ll appear in five episodes beginning Aug. 6 at 8 p.m. and airing Tuesdays through Sept. 3.
McCaskey has long sought to avoid the distraction that comes with a film crew following players on and off the field. This season, it will be only the first of many distractions for the team and its No. 1 overall pick, quarterback Caleb Williams. The Bears already are set to report to Halas Hall early so they can play in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 1 against the Texans. The trip to Canton, Ohio, will be one of three trips they make in 21 days. They also have road preseason games Aug. 10 at Buffalo and Aug. 22 at Kansas City.
And six weeks into the season, the Bears will face perhaps the biggest disruption in their schedule — a game against the Jaguars in London.
That’s a lot for Williams to have to navigate in his first weeks as a pro. The Bears’ challenge will be to make sure his routine remains exactly that. However, unlike previous Bears quarterbacks, Williams is already used to celebrity status. The 2022 Heisman Trophy winner out of USC, he once had his own bobblehead day at Dodger Stadium.
The Bears are one of 10 teams to have never appeared on “Hard Knocks” and one of the few the NFL could compel to appear in this year’s version. The show could help them gain public support for their downtown stadium project. In a release, president/CEO Kevin Warren said the Bears are in a “unique and critical time in the history of our franchise.”
At the NFL’s annual meetings in March, McCaskey said he looked forward to anyone else but the Bears appearing on the show. He said Warren was of the same mind. The same day, Warren said his interests were rooted in “making sure that the NFL stays strong and vibrant.”