Former GM Warns Why Kevin Warren Is A Different Animal

This week, the Chicago Bears turned heads when they announced they'd landed their replacement for team president Ted Phillips. It will be former Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, a highly-respected executive with over 20 years of NFL experience in various front offices, from the Rams to the Lions and Vikings. The reasoning for the hire seems pretty clear. Warren has a wealth of experience guiding the construction of a new stadium. He did so for the Vikings in the late 2010s. Now U.S. Bank Stadium is regarded as one of the best in football, if not all professional sports.

However, that isn't even close to the only reason the McCaskeys wanted him. There is a feeling he'd bring a breath of fresh air to an organization needing further modernization. Many feel the Bears are still run like a "Mom & Pop" franchise, trailing far behind other more professional teams like New England, Baltimore, Kansas City, and now Buffalo. Former GM Rick Spielman worked with Warren in Minnesota for over a decade. He spoke to Adam Jahns of The Athletic about what the franchise can expect.

He made one clear immediately. Warren is a quietly ferocious competitor.

“You have your base, building blocks of your systems in place,” Spielman said. “But he was just curious as I was on, ‘What can we do outside the box that may give us a competitive advantage within the rules? Is there anything out there — anything that we can be doing differently that maybe someone else isn’t doing that can help us get a competitive advantage?’

“We would look at different ways from analytics, how we were doing things, how he was doing analytics on the business side. And there’s just so much crossover. I think it’s critical that you have that kind of relationship in the building.”

With Warren, it's always about striving to be the best.

It doesn't matter if it's the business side or the football side. An organization should always aim to be on top. Otherwise, what are you doing? That was reflected in how he ran the Big Ten. Spielman expects he will carry that same mentality to Chicago.

Spielman also used the saying: “Best in class.” That’s a Warren phrase. It’s how “he’d like to describe it,” Spielman said. It’s what he wanted the Vikings to be and what he’ll aspire for now that he’s with the Bears.

“Whether it was a practice facility or whether it was the stadium, whether it was this or that, it was always how does this help our football team because that’s ultimately what you’re trying to do,” Spielman said. “The No. 1 was how do we make this franchise from a business side, the No. 1 franchise in the NFL, and how do we make this football team, and all the things that you can add from the business side, to be best in class.”

Kevin Warren is what the Bears need.

When the person at the top might be the biggest competitor in the entire organization, it will trickle down to everybody else. While Phillips was a brilliant guy when it came to business decisions for the Bears, nobody would ever accuse him of being an asset on the football side. He never understood how to set a standard or identity for the organization. That is likely because he had no background in sports. Such is not the case with Warren. He played sports in his youth. His father played sports. His son plays sports. It's in his blood.

The Bears can bet on one thing. Once Kevin Warren is in charge, he will strive day and night to make them the class of the NFL. He is an ambitious man. Reports indicate he hopes to become the first African-American commissioner in NFL history. Turning the Bears into a winner would do wonders for his candidacy. Fans would love nothing better. It sounds like he and Ryan Poles will get along well. Both want the same thing. To take the North and never give it back.