The Hammond Bluff
Kevin Warren wants you to believe the Bears are packing for Indiana. The Cook County Treasurer, the environmental record, and the timeline all say otherwise.
By Dear Kevin Warren · 2026-05-27
Kevin Warren wants you to believe the Bears are packing for Indiana.
The evidence says he's bluffing.
The Slag Heap Problem
The Hammond site is not a prime piece of real estate. It's an industrial brownfield on Lake Michigan's southern shore. Environmental contamination is well documented.
The site requires a NEPA environmental assessment. That's a federal process that takes 18 to 24 months minimum before any construction can begin. The Bears have not started this process. They have not bought the land. They have no signed deal with anyone in Indiana.
Politicians Aren't Buying It
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas was blunt.
"My dead grandmother would have to come back to life for the Bears to go to Indiana. That is all BS, that they're going to Indiana. It is a toxic site."
The same office that published the $1.5 billion analysis of the megaprojects bill does not believe the Indiana threat is real.
Alex Kuhn, a Chicago political observer, noted that Pappas treats the Hammond threat as a total bluff. Other Chicago-area politicians share that view, especially since the slag heap story broke.
The Closer Argument
Hammond is 20 miles from Soldier Field. Arlington Heights is 38 miles.
If the Bears actually moved to Hammond, fans still spend money in Chicago. Illinois still gets the economic benefit. Indiana taxpayers pick up the $1 billion tab.
That's not a loss for Illinois. It's a better deal than paying for the stadium itself.
Brian Costin's Test
Brian Costin made the simplest observation: the smaller the Bears bill is, the less dangerous it is to taxpayers. The smallest danger is no bill at all.
He identified the structural problem the megaprojects bill creates. Local governments can use the untaxed value of the project to raise taxes on homeowners and businesses in the same district. A $2 billion stadium gets assessed at its pre-development value. The missing assessed value does not disappear. School districts, fire departments, and libraries still need funding.
"As is, the bill will lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes."
The Receipts
Warren has made threats before. The playbook is consistent.
| Promise | Date | Status | |---------|------|--------| | "Lakefront is the most attractive footprint" | Apr 2024 | Abandoned | | "Arlington Heights is our future home" | Sep 2025 | Still no deal | | Indiana is "most meaningful" | Feb 2026 | 48-hour backpedal | | March 2026 "critical deadline" | Mar 2026 | Passed with no deal |
The pattern: Warren cycles locations when negotiations stall. Each new threat pressures Illinois lawmakers. None has produced an actual stadium.
Hammond is the latest prop in a three-year leverage campaign.
What This Means
The legislative session ended May 31. The megaprojects bill is stuck. The broad bill was stripped down to a Bears-only carveout. The Hammond threat has not moved a single vote.
If the Bears were actually going to Hammond, they would have started the environmental assessment. They would have a signed deal with Indiana. They would not be scrambling for a Bears-only bill in Springfield.
They haven't. It's a bluff.
Sources: Cook County Treasurer Pappas Report, Field of Schemes, @alexkuhn523, @BrianCostin, Capitol News Illinois
Update — July 15, 2026
Since this article was published on May 27, two developments have reinforced the bluff thesis from unexpected directions:
The math does not add up. On July 14, the Chicago Tribune published the first independent, named-economist analysis of Indiana's Hammond stadium financing. Geoffrey Propheter (University of Colorado Denver) and Deborah Carroll (University of Illinois Chicago) both concluded that even under best-case revenue assumptions, the tax streams authorized under SB 27 fall $5-7 million per year short of the $60-62M annual debt service on a $1 billion, 30-year bond. If revenue falls short, Carroll noted, "broader tax sources unrelated to the stadium come into play, which would increase the tax burden for Indiana residents." A deal that cannot pay for itself is not a deal. It is a wish.
Porter County says "hell no." County Commissioner Jim Biggs told the Tribune that when he asks residents whether they want to pay the 1% food-and-beverage tax the Hammond package depends on, "the answer is almost 100% — not no, but, hell no." Council President Andy Vásquez blamed his primary election defeat on his stadium tax support. Without Porter County's participation, the financing gap widens further.
Even GOP leaders call it a coin flip. State Sen. Sue Rezin (deputy minority leader) told Shaw Local on July 14 that she gives the Bears a "50-50 chance" of staying in Illinois. "It comes down to a legislative fix in Springfield," she said. Five weeks after the Bears board voted to advance Hammond, a Republican Senate leader is treating it as a toss-up — not a fait accompli.
The second site is a chemical brownfield. The Bears are now scouting Wolf Lake Terminals, an 83-acre site with 21 million gallons of chemical tank storage near Dover Chemical Corp. If the first Hammond site was a slag heap, the backup is a chemical plant.
The bluff was always visible if you looked at the math. Now the math has been done by people with PhDs and the answer is: it does not work.