Brian Urlacher on the Bears' Move, Caleb Williams, and Why He Thinks Chicago Is One Rung Away

"I don't blame the Bears, honestly, because it's a money deal. Because they don't make enough."

"I don't know the situation with the state in downtown exactly. I know the Bears don't have the rights to it, so I know they're missing out on some sort of money with that. If they own the stadium, they make more money, right? And I know tax wise in Illinois, they're not getting maybe the breaks they want from from the awesome governor there, so I think there may be an issue with that, but I mean it's a money move."

"They got to find a way to make more money, which most good businesses do in their business. So can't blame them. It's different. It's gonna be different than playing in Hammond, but it's still not too far from downtown."

"From what they said the other day, I think they're trying to take one more stand and they'll come back with another offer, or a better deal for them. But right now, I would say just the way everything's going, and people I've talked to, it looks like it's going to be Hammond, but you never know, there could be a last-minute substitution there with the state of Illinois making a drastic change. Who knows?"

"Soldier fields, I mean the Bears are Soldier Field, right? I can't imagine them....I get upset when you talk about them going. I don't like that at all."

"I don't like them being in a dome. I don't like them being anywhere but Soldier Field. But the whole situation to me was messed up. I didn't like any other way to talk about them moving."

"I understand it, because they got to get out of the city of Chicago. I get that, but I don't like them leaving the state. I don't like them leaving Soldier Field."

"It's just going to be different, man, especially after playing 13 years in that stadium. It's just different. The fans are going to be a different vibe, especially if they go indoors. That's going to be really weird to me, man."

"Well, our weather stinks. I remember early on learning, no matter how good or bad we were, no matter what the weather was, and no matter where we played, our fans always showed up."

"I can remember playing in Arizona a few years early in my career, and I feel like half the stadium was Bears fans. Atlanta, there was one year we played there was...it's just amazing how many fans we have everywhere. Dallas, same way."

"I was shocked because I grew up a Dallas fan, and we played at AT&T. I was like, 'Holy s***, there are a ton of Bears fans here.' It's just crazy to me how well they travel, how much they care about their team."

"They love the Bears, they love their football, their basketball, their hockey, they love it all. Their Chicago players are the greatest, but the football team, I still think the Bears take the prize there in Chicago. Especially now that they're playing great again."

"Oh, for sure, you saw their overtime. They're right there, and you saw how close the Rams played those Seahawks division opponents, obviously. But I don't think they're far off."

"I mean, they've done some good things this offseason. Caleb's just going to get better and better. Ben Johnson's going to figure out more of what he has on his team, great hire he was, his first year they did what they did."

"But yeah, it's exciting. They just put some more pieces around that quarterback, and the good thing they have is Caleb is on his rookie contract. So they can actually pay some other guys around him to help them until he gets that big deal, until he gets the extension. Then it's a little different then, because all your money goes through the quarterback. But until then they can, they can do some things."

"He is so unique in what he does, I don't compare him to anyone, because first of all, he has a great arm, and so you'll get these quarterbacks that can run, but they can't throw as well. Or they can throw good, but they can't run. Does that make sense?"

"Equally well, he runs it really well when he has to, he scrambles unreal when he throws the ball down the field, when he scrambles, he can make every throw, so you get these guys who can run, they're mostly running quarterbacks, but they can't throw it as well. Caleb doesn't have that, he throws, he does both equally well."

"He's very unique in his skill set, he's fun as hell to watch. I'm glad we finally hit on a quarterback, honestly. When I was there for 13 years, we had 22 different starting quarterbacks. They've been trying to get one in the first round the last couple of years, so it's nice to see they finally hit on one. I like what he says in the media, he's the guy there the next 15-to-17 years out."

"I think accuracy wise, Aaron Rodgers is the best to me accuracy wise. He throws the ball — at least when we played him — and his accuracy was, he threw like 50 touchdowns and six picks in a year. That's unbelievable. And it's not just one time he did that. He had under 10 picks, seven, eight, nine times in his career. But that's unreal to me."

"And then the way Aaron would move around in the pocket to manipulate the guys to get open down the field. Caleb has that in him as well. He does a lot of that."

"I'm holding my breath most of the time when he starts scrambling in the pocket, but he makes good decisions. You're gonna have turnovers, that's just the position, right? You're gonna have times where you make mistakes, that's just the way it goes. But he values the football, which I appreciate as a defensive player."

"Defensively, they're going to have to play better. They got some dudes up front, and the thing that's gonna be different for them, I think they're gonna play with the lead this year a bunch. You get used to playing from behind, and your pass rushers can't get after the quarterback. There's some things you can't do."

"They won so many games last year that they shouldn't have won. Every game, the Packers game, when they beat the crap out of the Packers twice there late in the season, they only led for 15 seconds total in both games when they crushed them. They built off of that."

"You got to learn how to play with the lead. You got to learn how to get some leads earlier in those games, which I think they're going to do. They're going to be better all the way around, in my opinion."

"I hope I'm right. I just don't see them taking a step back. I see Caleb getting better. I see the defense getting better. Good teams get better every single year. I think they'll be doing that, staying healthy is the number one deal with everybody."

"Oh, definitely, you got the 1A and 1B right there. You got the Bills in that category when they want to be. Maybe Baltimore, but we'll see if they bounce back, but the Bears are right there. I think they're just one rung below those guys, because of the way last year ended."

"Oh gosh, I think this is probably close to my 17th or 18th year playing in the American Century Championship. It's just fun, man."

"Every summer we put that on our calendar, hoping to get the invite. I think the invites go out like in February or March, but we just kind of sit around waiting for the invite, and then kind of build our summer around this week."

"It's a blast. The competition's fun, but hanging out with all those other guys from all the different sports, and then the actors and stuff, just a good week, man. There's a ton of fans now that go. It's amazing how much it's blown up there in Tahoe."

"I know I can't win. There's only about probably five or six guys that can win, and we know that. That's why they do the scoring system the way they do, because no worse than double bogey. You pick up and try and keep pace to play up. I have no dreams of winning, I know I can't win. There's five or six guys that can win, I am unfortunately not one of those guys."

"For sure, seeing the same guys, there's a few of these events that we have over the years where you see the same guys. Marcus Allen had a golf tournament the other day at San Diego, and there had to be 35 or 30 Hall of Famers there. It's just cool."

"There's a couple of these where we see everybody, and this was the main one, because there's every sports involved in this, and you have the actors involved as well. It's pretty cool the dynamic they have of the people that are involved."