Chicago Bears

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Chicago Bears

Current season

Established September 17, 1920; 98 years ago[1]

First season: 1920
Play in Soldier Field
Chicago, Illinois
Headquartered in Halas Hall
Lake Forest, Illinois

Logo Wordmark

League/conference affiliations

National Football League (1920–present)

 Western Division (1933–1949)

 National Conference (1950–1952)

 Western Conference (1953–1969)

o Central Division (1967–1969)

 National Football Conference (1970–present)

o Central Division (1970–2001)

o North Division (2002–present)

 Current uniform

Team colors Navy blue, burnt orange, white[2][3][4]

Fight song "Bear Down, Chicago Bears"

Mascot Staley Da Bear

Personnel

Owner(s) Virginia Halas McCaskey

Chairman George McCaskey

President Ted Phillips

General manager Ryan Pace

Head coach Matt Nagy

Team history

 Decatur Staleys (1920)

 Chicago Staleys (1921)

 Chicago Bears (1922–present)

Team nicknames
 Da Bears

 The Monsters of the Midway

Championships

League championships (9)

 NFL Championships (pre-1970 AFL–NFL merger) (8)

1921, 1932, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1943, 1946, 1963

 Super Bowl championships (1)

1985 (XX)

Conference championships (4)

 NFL Western: 1956, 1963

 NFC: 1985, 2006

Division championships (21)

 NFL Western: 1933, 1934, 1937, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1946, 1956, 1963

 NFC Central: 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 2001

 NFC North: 2005, 2006, 2010, 2018

Playoff appearances (26)

 NFL: 1933, 1934, 1937, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1946, 1950, 1956, 1963, 1977, 1979, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1994, 2001, 2005, 2006, 201
0, 2018

Home fields

 Staley Field (1920)

 Wrigley Field (1921–1970)

 Soldier Field (1971–2001, 2003–present)

 Memorial Stadium (2002)

Team owner(s)
  A.E. Staley Company (1920–1921)

 George Halas and Dutch Sternaman (1921–1932)

 George Halas (1932–1983)

 Virginia Halas McCaskey (1983–present)

Team president(s)

 George Halas (1921–1953)

 George Halas Jr. (1963–1979)[5]

 Michael McCaskey (1983–1999)

 Ted Phillips (1999–present)

The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. The Bears compete in the National Football
League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NFL
Championships, including one Super Bowl, and hold the NFL record for the most enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the
most retired jersey numbers. The Bears have also recorded more victories than any other NFL franchise.[6][7][8]
The franchise was founded in Decatur, Illinois, on September 17, 1920,[1][9] and moved to Chicago in 1921. It is one of only two remaining
franchises from the NFL's founding in 1920, along with the Arizona Cardinals, which was originally also in Chicago. The team played home
games at Wrigley Field on Chicago's North Side through the 1970 season; they now play at Soldier Field on the Near South Side, next
to Lake Michigan. The Bears have a long-standing rivalry with the Green Bay Packers.[10]
The team headquarters, Halas Hall, is in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. The Bears practice at adjoining facilities there during
the season. Since 2002, the Bears have held their annual training camp, from late July to mid-August, at Ward Field on the campus
of Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois.[11]

Contents

 1Franchise history
o 1.11920–1939: Early Bears
o 1.21940s: The Monsters of the Midway
o 1.31950s–1968: Late-Halas era
o 1.41969–1982: Struggles
o 1.51983–1985: Contenders, then Super Bowl Champions
o 1.61986–2003: Post-Super Bowl
o 1.72004–2012: Lovie Smith era
o 1.82013–2014: Marc Trestman years
o 1.92015–2017: John Fox era
o 1.102018–present: Matt Nagy era
 2Ownership
 3Sponsorships
 4Logos and uniforms
 5Team culture
 o 5.1Mascots and cheerleaders
o 5.2Philanthropy
 6Rivalries
o 6.1Divisional rivals
 6.1.1Green Bay Packers
 6.1.2Minnesota Vikings
 6.1.3Detroit Lions
 7Stadium
 8In popular culture
 9Broadcast media
o 9.1Radio
o 9.2Television
 10Statistics and records
o 10.1Season-by-season results
o 10.2Records
 11Players of note
o 11.1Current roster
o 11.2Pro Football Hall of Famers
o 11.3Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame
o 11.4Retired numbers
 12Coaching staff
 13References
 14Sources
 15External links

Franchise history
Main article: History of the Chicago Bears

1920–1939: Early Bears

In March of 1920 a man telephoned me ... George Chamberlain and he was general superintendent of the A.E. Staley Company ... In 1919,
[the company's Fellowship Club] had formed a football team. It had done well against other local teams but Mr. Staley wanted to build it into
a team that could compete successfully with the best semi-professional and industrial teams in the country ... Mr. Chamberlain asked if I
would like to come to Decatur and work for the Staley Company.

— George Halas, in his book Halas by Halas.[9]

The team's founder George Halas(right) with NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle
Originally named the Decatur Staleys, the club was established by the A. E. Staley food starch company of Decatur, Illinois as a company
team. This was the typical start for several early professional football franchises. The company hired George Halas and Edward "Dutch"
Sternaman in 1920 to run the team. The 1920 Decatur Staleys season[12] was their inaugural regular season completed in the newly formed
American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League (NFL) in 1922).
Full control of the team was turned over to Halas and Sternaman in 1921.[13] Official team and league records cite Halas as the founder as
he took over the team in 1920 when it became a charter member of the NFL.[14]
The team relocated to Chicago in 1921, where the club was renamed the Chicago Staleys. Under an agreement reached by Halas and
Sternaman with Staley, Halas purchased the rights to the club from Staley for US$100.
In 1922, Halas changed the team name from the Staleys to the Bears.[15] The team moved into Wrigley Field, which was home to
the Chicago Cubsbaseball franchise. As with several early NFL franchises, the Bears derived their nickname from their city's baseball team
(some directly, some indirectly – like the Bears, whose young are called "cubs").[16] Halas liked the bright orange-and-blue colors of his alma
mater, the University of Illinois, and the Bears adopted those colors as their own, albeit in a darker shade of each (the blue
is Pantone 5395, navy blue, and the orange is Pantone 1665, similar to burnt orange).[17][18]
The Staleys/Bears dominated the league in the early years. Their rivalry with the Chicago Cardinals, the oldest in the NFL (and a crosstown
rival from 1920 to 1959), was key in four out of the first six league titles. During the league's first six years, the Bears lost twice to
the Canton Bulldogs (who took two league titles over that span), and split with their crosstown rival Cardinals (going 4–4–2 against each
other over that span), but no other team in the league defeated the Bears more than a single time. During that span, the Bears posted 34
shutouts.
The Bears' rivalry with the Green Bay Packers is one of the oldest and most storied in American professional sports, dating back to 1921
(the Green Bay Packers were an independent team until they joined the NFL in 1921). In one infamous incident that year, Halas got the
Packers expelled from the league in order to prevent their signing a particular player, and then graciously got them re-admitted after the
Bears had closed the deal with that player.[19]