CHICAGO, IL — Dr. Patricia Woodward has, over the course of a twenty-two-year career in sports psychology, worked with professional athletes through injuries, retirement transitions, contract disputes, and one very famous situation she is legally prohibited from discussing that involved a team mascot from a different city and a fog machine.

Nothing, she has told colleagues, prepared her for Staley Da Bear.

“He’s engaged,” Dr. Woodward said, choosing her words with visible care. “He shows up every week. He does the work. He journals. He’s identified his core emotional patterns. He has a very sophisticated understanding of his own attachment style.”

She paused.

“He is also the most exhausting client I have ever had.”

The Incident That Started Everything

Staley Da Bear entered therapy voluntarily in October, approximately seventy-two hours after the Chicago Bears fired head coach Matt Eberflus mid-season — during a bye week, notably, which is an organizational choice that many in the league described as “a little cold” and which Staley described, during his intake session, as “a betrayal of everything I understand about continuity.”

Dr. Woodward noted in her intake forms that Staley had arrived for his first appointment with three things: a detailed grievance letter he had written about the firing (single-spaced, twelve pages, with footnotes), a tote bag from a bookstore that said “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” (he had added, in marker, “but most of us ARE”), and a medium order of boneless wings from a Buffalo Wild Wings location he had visited on the way over and appeared to have been stress-eating in the parking lot before coming in.

“I asked him if he wanted to start with the letter,” Dr. Woodward said. “He said he wanted to start with Caleb Williams.”

The Caleb Williams Situation

This requires context.

The Chicago Bears selected quarterback Caleb Williams with the first overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft amid enormous expectations, a multimedia rollout, and the kind of anticipatory excitement that can only be generated in a city that has been waiting since 1985 for something, anything, to work at the quarterback position in a sustainable way.

Caleb Williams is talented. He has shown genuine ability, flashes of brilliance, the makings of something real. He has also been playing behind an offensive line that has, at various points this season, offered him roughly the same level of protection as a paper parasol in a hurricane.

Staley Da Bear loves Caleb Williams.

He loves him in the way that you love a very small and brave animal you found outside during a rainstorm. He wants to protect him. He can’t protect him. He watches every snap from behind his paws.

“The helplessness piece is significant,” Dr. Woodward noted. “He experiences what I’d describe as proximate grief — he feels the suffering of a third party as though it is his own. In Staley’s case, every time Williams takes a hit, he experiences it as a personal loss.”

She looked at her notes.

“He keeps describing it as ‘watching someone you love get hurt in slow motion, repeatedly, for four months.’”

She closed her notes.

“This is, to be clear, just watching a football game.”

Documented Episodes

Per our reporting, Staley Da Bear has cried in a Buffalo Wild Wings twice this season. The first time was Week 7, following a loss to the Washington Commanders in which Chicago committed eight penalties for ninety-three yards and Caleb Williams was sacked six times. He was in the restaurant alone. He ordered the boneless sampler. He did not finish it. A server brought him extra napkins without being asked.

The second time was Week 14. The Bears had won that game, 24-20, on a last-minute touchdown drive. Staley cried then, too. Happy crying, he clarified. He had forgotten what that felt like and it surprised him. He gave a twenty-dollar tip on a twelve-dollar order and stood in the parking lot for a while afterward just breathing.

“He’s told that story four times in session,” Dr. Woodward said. “The Week 14 win. He keeps coming back to it. I think it’s important to him. A reminder that it can still happen.”

She smiled slightly.

“That’s actually progress, honestly. That he comes back to the wins. Early on, he only came back to the losses.”

Current Status

Staley is, Dr. Woodward says, doing better. He has a coping toolkit. He has established that his self-worth is not contingent on the Bears’ win-loss record. He has identified that his anxiety about Caleb Williams is a displacement of deeper concerns about hope and disappointment. He has accepted that the offensive line will be addressed and that teams rebuild and that 2026 could be different.

He has also, reportedly, already purchased his season tickets for next year.

“He asked me if that was healthy,” Dr. Woodward said.

What did you tell him?

“I told him that hope is healthy. Attachment is healthy. And that professional football will break your heart annually regardless, so you might as well lean into it.”

She picked up her coffee.

“He cried a little when I said that. Good crying. The healthy kind.”

She paused.

“He really does love that team.”

Staley Da Bear declined our request for a formal interview, but did text this reporter the following, unprompted, at 11:47 p.m. on a Wednesday:

“i know the article is probably going to be kind of funny haha but i want to say for the record that i really do believe in this team. like genuinely. caleb is going to be something. i know it. you wait.”

He then sent a bear emoji, a football emoji, and a blue heart.

We’re rooting for him. We’re not saying that. But we are.