Paul Sullivan: Leaving a Bears-Packers game early could scar Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's legacy

CHICAGO - Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot got into the elevator with White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf after a recent game at Rate Field.

I was pretty sure it was her based on the Sox jersey with "Lightfoot" on the back.

There was no time to chit-chat about the Sox resurgence or the Bears stadium saga, but it was good to see Lightfoot is still a fan, even if she was a disappointment as mayor.

It's not a necessity to be a real fan of our teams if you're the mayor of Chicago, though you have to act like one whether you're real or a poseur. If you don't like sports or tavern-style pizza in Chicago, people tend to wonder what's wrong with you.

Lightfoot calls herself a true Sox fan, and showing up to games when you're no longer on the clock is evidence enough for me. She also reportedly has season tickets for the Bears and Sky.

I've also seen former Mayor Richard M. Daley at Sox games since he left office, and the Daley family has been Sox season ticket holders since at least the time his father, Richard J. Daley, was mayor. The elder Daley even turned on the air-raid sirens when the Sox won the pennant in 1959, saying it was appropriate "in the hilarity and exuberance of the evening," despite some people thinking the city was under attack.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been seen at all of our sporting venues and was at the Bears' divisional-round playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams in January at Soldier Field until the bitter end.

All seem to be real Chicago fans whom you could envision sitting in a comfy chair at home yelling at the TV because one of our legacy teams was blowing a lead.

That brings us to our current mayor, Brandon Johnson, who likes to portray himself as a Cubs, Bears and Bulls fan. I have no reason to doubt this, but a comment he made on The Score on Wednesday made me and everyone else who heard it wince.

Johnson was interviewed by co-hosts Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris about the Bears stadium kerfuffle that has gone on so long, it's threatening to last longer than Daley's dreadful parking meter deal. Johnson still seems to believe the Bears can stay in Chicago and that a lakefront stadium solution would be a better alternative to Arlington Heights or Hammond, Ind., the only real options remaining.

"Getting in and out of Soldier Field is an absolute nightmare," Johnson said. "Let me tell you how bad it is. Bears versus Packers, I'm at the game, we're losing. I decide to leave to beat the traffic. Before I get out of the footprint, the Bears come back to win. The ingress, egress part, that's what we need to fix."

He continued to talk about the difficulties of getting in and out of Soldier Field, which is common knowledge.

But nothing else he said mattered. Johnson's mayoral legacy was sealed. He lost us at "beat the traffic."

Leaving a Bears-Packers game before the end - whether it was the regular-season comeback or the wild-card playoff comeback dubbed "the greatest game in Bears history" - is a cardinal sin. How could anyone trust his decision-making again? Had he not watched the Bears? Does he even know who Caleb Williams is?

Sure, Emanuel left the Cubs home opener early in 2014, but that wasn't Bears-Packers, and he certainly didn't talk about it.

A video of the remark quickly went viral on social media, and the comments were as brutal as one would suspect. If I were Susana Mendoza, who declared her candidacy Wednesday for the 2027 race, I'd be saving that clip for attack ads in case Johnson decides to run again.

Whether he understands the significance of his gaffe remains to be seen, but Johnson never will be able to tout himself as a Chicago sports fan again and expect anyone to believe him. Some things are better left unsaid.

Harold Washington, perhaps our greatest mayor, was not the biggest sports fan. But he was smart enough to know the city needed him to play the role, especially when the 1985 Bears ruled the world. Washington almost single-handedly promoted "The Refrigerettes," a winking parody of NFL cheerleading squads featuring plus-sized women that was named after Bears defensive lineman William "Refrigerator" Perry.

An old friend of Washington's recently told me he secretly grew up a Cleveland Browns fan because of legendary running back Jim Brown, but Washington never would have done something as crazy as saying that out loud. When he entered politics in Chicago, he automatically became a Bears fan and never looked back.

Looking back, Washington was ahead of his time in 1986, proposing a domed stadium for the Bears near Roosevelt Road and the south branch of the Chicago River. Naturally, then-Bears President Mike McCaskey, the brother of current Chairman George McCaskey, killed the idea and wrote a letter to Washington saying "it would economically be a wiser course" to remain at Soldier Field.

Mike McCaskey wrote that the Bears were "paying for the failure" of city officials 20 years earlier to "heed my grandfather's call" for a new stadium, referring to Bears founder George Halas.

Yes, blaming the lack of a new stadium on politicians is a Bears tradition, dating back to Papa Bear - making the current stadium standstill a virtual rerun.

It has been exhausting to hear rich owners tell us we need to help build them stadiums for the last 60 or so years.

Emanuel liked to brag that he served two terms without providing taxpayer money for stadiums, telling the Chicago Tribune's David Haugh in 2019: "I don't think it's a good investment and I don't think taxpayers should be subsidizing privately owned, privately managed, privately gained sports teams."

Richie Daley was once so fed up with the Bears' demands that he called for a second NFL team in Chicago to compete with them.

"I've always believed - the Chicago Cardinals, Bears - why is it that New York has two (teams)?" he told Comcast SportsNet Chicago in 2012. "Florida has three. San Francisco has two. … Chicago loves sports and we could get a second team in here. You could build a new stadium, you could have huge international soccer teams come in, you could do the Final Four, you could do anything you wanted with a brand-new stadium."

The NFL never would let that happen, of course, but it's nice to dream. For the foreseeable future, we're stuck with Soldier Field and its ingress-egress problems.

The Packers will be back to play the Bears on Christmas Day. Is Johnson already planning his escape?

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This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 2:42 AM.