The Chicago Bears have remained one of the signature NFL teams despite a rough record after the inception of the Super Bowl. The fans are without question some of the most loyal sports fans around, believing that the next 1985 is every season. Bears tickets are always gone, no matter how much snow has fallen or how sharply the winter winds blow off Lake Michigan.
This loyalty has been cultivated over the years thanks to football dominance that began in 1920 under the direction of the team’s founder, George Halas. “Papa Bear” moved the team, then the Decatur Staleys, to Chicago in 1921 and changed the name to the Bears. The seasons that would follow would be glorious for the franchise, as the team quickly became a constant competitor in the NFL.
The team won with defense and innovation. RB Red Grange led the Chicago Bears to the first official NFL Championship in 1932 over the New York Giants 23-21. The Grange days would give way to a team led by Sid Luckman in the 1940s. The first use of the T-formation (a George Halas invention) led to a 73-0 win over the Washington Redskins in the 1940 championship.
The Monsters of the Midway changed the limitations of offense with the T-formation, but also changed defense with a series of deadly middle linebackers. Dick Butkis, Bill George, George Connor, and many others that helped clay the groundwork for the modern-day 4-3 defense. Bears tickets in these days, before the NFL would take on the upstart AFL, would be rewarded with an incredible eight championships Fans of football today owe homage to these early Bears teams.
The modern memory of football often forgets this period before the though. Memories of players like TE Mike Ditka, RB-OT-LB Bronko Nagurski, TE-DE Bill Hewitt, and a slew of other Hall of Famers are forgotten. The modern memory of the Bears instead falls on the compelling story of Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, the sweetness of Walter Payton, and the dominant 1985 Chicago Bears. Still, these players and teams are enough to keep the fans relishing Bears tickets every fall.
After a difficult time in the late ‘90s and some trying seasons to start off the 21st century, Bears football now begins each season with murmurs of playoffs and a possible Super Bowl.
