Access "House of Dysfunction," our three-part series on the Chicago Bears

Our aim is to take you places others do not. All links inside.

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Good morning, all.

The 2025 NFL season is here in all of its glory.

It’s been a wild 72 hours. Thank You to everyone who found Go Long and subscribed. After months of reporting, we published a three-part, 27,000-word series: “House of Dysfunction.” From Caleb Williams’ calamity of a rookie season to Ryan Poles’ “rigged” draft process to all deep-rooted problems inside the day-to-day operations at Halas Hall, we tried to dig, and dig, and get answers through 32 sources. This flagship organization has one winning season since 2012.

Ben Johnson’s task is tall.

Chicago will host the Minnesota Vikings tonight on Monday Night Football.

Our aim — always — is to take you places others do not. There’s one an NFL carefully sanitized at a podium for cheery social-media consumption. Then, there’s reality. We promise to relentlessly bring readers this sport in its realest, rawest form. I’ll share all of our content plans for the season later this week.

Absolutely thrilled that you’re here. If you joined our free mailing list, it’s a perfect time to upgrade.

Appreciate all of you devoting your valuable time to read.

As a reminder, there’s always three ways to access everything at Go Long:

• Your email inbox.

• GoLongTD.com.

• Substack app (which includes audio narration)

Here are links to all three parts (with a few quotes pulled):

Part I

• “Talking about being great and being great are two different things. I don’t care what you say. I care what you do.” - coach

• “He didn’t want to hear anything. He didn’t like criticism, so he’d just fucking get up and leave. We’d be like, ‘This motherfucker.’ Get up and leave! I would see this guy storming off and hear them talking in the headset about Caleb. You look over, and there’s Caleb fucking walking away all pouty. Then, he would sit all the way on the other side of the benches.” - coach

• “He tried to portray himself as an alpha and he definitely was not an alpha in any type of situation. It was forced leadership. Everything was a charade. There was nothing authentic.” - coach

• “Everybody was kissing his ass to get him here. So he’s thinking, ‘I ain’t got to listen to any of these guys. You should be kissing my ass.’ Because we were! Why would he change?” - coach

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  Part II

• “He said, ‘If I don’t take him, the media will kill me.’ … If you’re making picks for the media, then you might as well have Mel Kiper be GM. That’s just ridiculous. That’s not a general manager. The general manager is supposed to be the captain of the ship. He’s supposed to be the best evaluator on the staff. I cannot believe a general manager would actually say that out loud.” - scout

• “Neither one of those guys was even a consideration. There. Was. No. Process. The grades that they had on Caleb were off the charts.” - scout on Daniels/Maye

• “There’s a reason why he has processing issues. There’s a reason why he held onto the ball longer than any quarterback in college coming out, and it was never discussed. None of these things were discussed. There was nothing negative. … We took him because the media said to take him.” - scout

• “He never proved that he was a scout. The only way that you should ever possess the power to make picks is if you’ve shown this. He never did that. He had all the answers to the test. He could put a grade higher or lower. Frankly, my wife can do that. Then, he got promoted to director. He never had his ass hanging out there. He never showed he could evaluate.” -personnel man, former co-worker

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Part III

• “The great ruse is ‘Hey, everything is great here in Camelot.’ Well, it’s not actually Camelot. Ask anyone, and if they’re honest with you, it’s going to be quite the opposite. That’s the reality. Everyone is scared for their job, worried at any moment he’s just going to call — well, not him, he won’t do it, he has somebody else handle that shit.” - Bears VP

• “Ryan Poles, even when he was in Kansas City, just came off as an arrogant asshole. It’s an entitlement and an arrogance all coming from a team that hasn’t been successful. Even with other GMs that’ve done it for a long time, you don’t feel that. So there was always something with him. You always felt this arrogant entitlement to him that you’re not used to. You don’t have that a lot in the league. It’s not normal.” - another NFL GM

• “People are scared every day that they’re going to be fired. It’s a job. It’s why they pay you. But you shouldn’t fear going to work and you shouldn’t dread the people you work with — certainly those that are supposed to be leaders. You should look up to them. It’s quite the opposite.” - exec on business side

• “It’s like banging your head against the wall doing the same thing over and over. When you’re supposed to turn right, George McCaskey takes a hard left every step of the way. … He tries to come off as this, everyman: ‘I’m just a fan and I’m not a football guy.’ And it’s like, ‘Well, maybe you should be.’ Would you buy a car dealership if you didn’t know anything about fucking cars? It just doesn’t make sense to me. So yeah, so here we are again.” - longtime staffer