What happened on February 19
George McCaskey is reportedly livid with his CEO. The breaking point was a single day: a productive Illinois meeting, followed by a pivot to Indiana, followed by killing the Illinois hearing. In 48 hours, Warren undid three years of work. Here's what happened.
By Dear Kevin Warren · 2026-02-24
George McCaskey is reportedly livid with his CEO.
Not disappointed. Not concerned. Livid.
That word is doing a lot of work. And it didn't happen overnight. It happened in 48 hours. The breaking point was a single day, and it destroyed three years of work.
Here is the sequence.
Wednesday, February 18 — The Productive Meeting
Kevin Warren and the Bears sit down with Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for three hours.
Pritzker's office calls it a productive meeting.
This is significant. Three years of negotiations. Multiple sites proposed. Multiple demands. Warren comes out of a three-hour session with the sitting governor and the word is "productive."
The momentum is with Illinois. Pritzker is engaged. Arlington Heights is on the table. The property tax bill (HB 2789) is moving through committee. This is the moment when you have leverage with both sides and you use it to close a deal.
Thursday, February 19 — The Day Everything Changed
Morning: Indiana's House Ways and Means Committee passes SB 27 unanimously. 24-0.
The Bears issue a statement.
"We appreciate Indiana's step forward with Senate Bill 27. This represents the most meaningful efforts in our stadium planning efforts to date."
Stop there. Read that again. Indiana has done more for the Bears' stadium plans than anything that happened in three years of Illinois negotiations. That is what Warren is telling the press. That is what he is telling Pritzker. That is what he is telling the McCaskeys.
Same afternoon: The Illinois House Revenue Committee was scheduled to hear testimony on HB 5500 (or the related property tax framework). The Bears request the hearing be canceled.
Not postponed. Canceled. At their own request. After a "productive" meeting with Pritzker the day before.
Warren killed his own Illinois hearing while simultaneously praising Indiana as the most meaningful progress the team has achieved.
What This Actually Meant
On February 19, Warren signaled that the Bears were done in Illinois.
Not that they were exploring options. Not that they were leveraging Illinois against Indiana. Done.
The hearing was the Bears' chance to show up, testify, answer questions, and cement the deal. Instead, they canceled it. While praising Indiana.
Pritzker's reaction, when reports broke: "Surprised, dismayed and very disappointed."
He had just sat with Warren for three hours. He didn't know the Bears were about to kill the meeting's follow-up.
The McCaskey Moment
George McCaskey is not the governor of Illinois. He doesn't care about Pritzker's feelings.
He cares about one thing: delivering a stadium.
He hired Kevin Warren in 2023 with a simple mandate: build a stadium in the Chicago market. That was the job. It's why the Bears paid premium money for a CEO with stadium experience — specifically a man who had helped shepherd U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota.
Three years later: no shovels. No site. No deal.
Instead: four different sites. Promises that never materialized. And now public humiliation in front of the governor of Illinois.
On February 19, Warren didn't just signal that the Bears preferred Indiana. He signaled that he wasn't in control of the process anymore. He was reacting to Indiana's momentum instead of controlling the negotiation.
That's the moment McCaskey realized he had hired the wrong man.
Not on February 20, when reports broke that McCaskey was furious. On February 19, when Warren canceled his own Illinois hearing while praising a state the Bears owner apparently didn't want to move to.
What George Ofman Reported
Insider George Ofman tweeted, reporting what he heard from sources:
> "Is Kevin Warren in hot water? Told Bears owner George McCaskey is livid with his president and CEO for his handling of Thursday's series of events. What a colossal mess this has turned out to be."
"Colossal mess." Not a negotiating mistake. Not a miscommunication. A colossal mess. That's how close people to the situation describe what happened on February 19.
The same insider noted: Arlington Heights is still very much in the picture.
Meaning: McCaskey wanted Arlington Heights. Warren just made Indiana irreversible by publicly killing Illinois on the same day.
The 48-Hour Reversal
On February 22 — 48 hours after calling Indiana "most meaningful" — Warren told Crain's Chicago Business:
"We continue to work with Illinois' leadership and appreciate the progress being made."
The hearing he canceled had never been rescheduled. Illinois had received no new information. No progress had been made.
But reports had broken that McCaskey was livid. So Warren reversed course.
Two statements. Two different states. 48 hours apart. One CEO. One boss who was apparently furious.
What This Means Going Forward
Indianapolis is Kevin Warren's new state capital. The NFL Combine is happening there this week. He watched Indiana's House pass 95-4 on his own time, in his own geographic proximity, while Illinois waited for a rescheduled hearing that hasn't happened.
Mike Braun is about to sign SB 27 into law. Warren will walk into Springfield's HB 2789 hearing Thursday morning with a fully enacted Indiana statute in his back pocket.
The leverage he's built is real. The question McCaskey is probably asking himself is: did he build it intentionally, or did it build itself while Warren stumbled through Illinois and Indiana unable to control either conversation?
Three years ago, McCaskey hired a stadium expert.
On February 19, he watched that expert hand the negotiation to Indiana without explicitly saying so. Not through strategy. Through panic.
That's what happened on Thursday. That's why McCaskey is livid.
Sources: George Ofman (insider report, Sports Mockery); Capitol News Illinois; IndyStar; Crain's Chicago Business; WGN; Illinois General Assembly; Indiana General Assembly.