Chicago Bears fans have had a look into the team's Training Camp and Preseason, given the Bear's inclusion in this year's Training Camp edition of HBO's Hard Knocks, but one prominent member of the organization who has yet to be featured on the show is chairman George McCaskey.
It's not a huge surprise that McCaskey hasn't been featured on Hard Knocks, considering his past reservations about the team being a part of the show but he did open up about the experience while speaking with Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Bears' version of the show has had mixed reviews due to a sense that the storylines are being watered down and there was some confirmation of that from McCaskey when he was asked if the team's 53-man roster decisions will be a focal point of the final episode on Tuesday.
“The nature of the program, the drama, if there is any, is the player personnel and the general manager and the coach building a roster and guys fighting for roster spots,” he said. “In our opinion, when you tell a young man that in all likelihood his lifetime dream is over, that’s a private moment. We want to be very sensitive about it; we want to handle it tastefully and sympathetically.”
That has been part of the problem with the Bears' season of Hard Knocks. Bears fans know what it is going on with the team so, in the case of the episode last Tuesday, where a majority of the episode was centered around Austin Reed, Adrian Colbert, and Ian Wheeler. We're not heartless, Wheeler's injury and reaction from his mom was emotionally riveting including the conversation he had with general manager Ryan Poles but outside of those five minutes to end the episode, it was a hour that fell flat.
The confession from McCaskey also doesn't set high expectations for the finale on Tuesday. Sure, we likely will get a look inside Poles' offices as the initial roster is being set but the segments that previously made Hard Knocks great, players receiving the news of the roster decision, won't be featured for the Bears. It's a deflating end to something the Bears could haved used to really drive home the improved direction the organization is headed in.