Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is the franchise's latest dream merchant

More on that later.

My younger brother, Girard, on the other hand, kept the faith and to this day remains a loyal fan of Chicago sports teams, especially the Chicago Bears. He is a dyed-in-the-wool fan and, like so many Bears fans, my brother has been on cloud nine since April 25 when the Bears drafted quarterback Caleb Williams, a player some people are calling the messiah. Fans are counting heavily on the 22-year-old Williams to lead the franchise from frustration to prominence.

"I have a feeling that this is a new time for the Bears," my brother told me Sunday morning from his home in Germany, where he's lived and worked since 1989 as an opera singer. "I think a lot of positive things are happening for the Bears."

Girard and I have been having these conversations about the Bears for a very long time. During the season, every Monday, my brother bemoans blown leads, late-game collapses, and surprising victories. For the last two seasons, the conversation has centered on Justin Fields, the recently departed quarterback the previous Bears regime drafted in 2021. In March, after months of speculation, the Bears traded Fields to Pittsburgh, where he will compete with Russell Wilson for the starting job.

My brother believes that Fields is in a much better situation in Pittsburgh and that Williams, because of changes in the Bears front office and coaching staff, is walking into a far better situation in Chicago than Fields encountered in 2021.

He pointed out that in 2017, the Bears so-called brain trust passed over quarterback Patrick Mahomes to draft Mitchell Trubisky.

"If Mahomes had come to Chicago back then instead of Trubisky, I don't think we ever would have heard of Mahomes," he said.

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My brother, ever the optimist, believed in Fields. I was agnostic but threw shade at the young quarterback because I enjoyed bearing witness to a Bears fan's frustration over yet another quarterback flop. "Justin Fields is on a much better team now in Pittsburgh than he had when he arrived in Chicago and Caleb Williams is going to be coming into a much better situation than Fields had," he said.

Truth is, the Bears haven't had a great quarterback since Sid Luckman, who played for the Bears between 1939 and 1950 and led the franchise to four NFL titles between 1940 and 1946. Since then, there has been a parade of quarterbacks, some better than others, though only two steered the Bears to the Super Bowl.

The 1985 Bears won a championship with Jim McMahon, who was hardly a stiff but he handed off to Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs in NFL history. Those 1985 Bears also had what some consider the greatest defense in NFL history.

"Jay Cutler was the last accomplished Bears quarterback," Girard said. Cutler played for the Bears between 2009 and 2016. He is the franchise leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, attempts and completions, but no championships. Not close.

"He had a really good array of receivers," Girard reminded me. "He is the last successful Bear quarterback."

Rex Grossman was the quarterback when the Bears reached the Super Bowl in the 2006 season and lost to the Indianapolis Colts. The game was notable because it marked the first time two Black coaches — the Colts' Tony Dungy and the Bears' Lovie Smith — faced each other in a Super Bowl.

Grossman is hardly in the conversation about great Bears quarterbacks.

"McMahon had the charisma, the swagger and several division championships," my brother said. "He might not have been a great quarterback, but he got the job done."

My brother believes that McMahon was the last Bears quarterback "with mystique, with an aura of winning."

That is, until Williams.

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Williams comes to the party with credentials and glitz. He is a Heisman Trophy winner and an NIL-era college quarterback who calls his own shots. At least he does for now. Williams spoke to the media during the NFL combine but did not work out, did no physicals or indulge in the dog and pony show for the 32 NFL teams.

"I'm not being romantic and I'm not picking the Bears to go to the Super Bowl, but I just think it's a good situation," Girard said.

Beyond Williams, there is a deeper story about fandom and attachment. There is a spirit of hope that allows fans like my brother to make an emotional investment in their respective teams.

I pulled out of my investment, but there was a time when I did care.

I was 13 on Dec. 29, 1963, when the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants to win the NFL championship. This was a much-needed healing tonic for the Rhoden family. My mother had died of breast cancer in August 1963. Her death ripped a gaping hole in our family and made my father a 44-year-old widower with a 15-year-old daughter, a 12-year-old son (me) and my 7-year-old baby brother.

The Bears' 1963 championship run was a welcome diversion.

Girard doesn't remember much about the Bears' championship — he had celebrated his eighth birthday five days earlier. He would have to wait and wait and wait. And wait he did, never losing faith.

The Bears won the Super Bowl in 1985. Girard was living in San Francisco, doing what singers do while they work on their craft and wait for their break. By 1985, I'd long been off the Fan Train.

I jumped off for good in tumultuous 1968. The assassination of activist Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights protest, the Black Power movement, the war in Vietnam, made sports fandom seem like an opiate, a diversion. A deeper exploration by journalists revealed that many pro and college sports teams were guilty of perpetrating racism. In 1968, Gale Sayers, the Bears' great young running back, tore up his knee. Athletes were pieces of meat, treated like cattle by team owners who exercised ironfisted control over players. This is a point that one of my favorite players, center fielder Curt Flood, pointed out when he took on MLB's reserve clause.

Who had time to be a fan?

Now, I cheer for the issues and individuals. I pull for Ryan Poles, the Bears' general manager, to be successful because I'm old-school enough to believe that when one Black person does well, the community benefits. Poles is a former player tasked with making the Bears competitive.

As fans, Girard and the Chicago Bears Nation are pulling for Poles because they want the Bears to be relevant and competitive. "My hopefulness is not just about Caleb Williams, it's also about the general manager and what he's been able to do," Girard said.

John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

As a mercenary sportswriter, all I cared about were the stories I wrote, the people who read them, the athletes, and the issues I was writing about — no team allegiance. The downside to being a mercenary sportswriter is that I sometimes fail to appreciate how deeply the people we call fans care. My brother cares a lot. "When I was a kid, when the Bears lost, I just had a bad day," he said. "That doesn't happen [anymore], but I just love cheering for them, and I enjoy the struggles that they've gone through — losing to Green Bay over and over and over again."

He moved to Germany for good in 1989, beginning his career in opera. His attachment to the Bears has never wavered and has gotten stronger.

"Being a Chicago Bears fan strengthened my connection to the place where I grew up," he said. "That's something you can keep alive at least once a week during the football season."

After the 2007 Super Bowl appearance, the Bears made one playoff appearance in 11 years. Bears fans like my brother experienced one disappointment after another with an array of quarterbacks, some of whom were adequate, some better than adequate: Kyle Orton, Cutler. The Bears traded up to get Trubisky in 2017, then drafted Fields in 2021.

Bears fans know this history all too well. I bring it up at moments of rapture like this merely to ask why this time it'll be different.

"We learned some things from Justin Fields. We learned that you can't bring in a new guy and expect him to be a messiah," Girard said. "You have to have a really solid base. We don't expect him to do it by himself."

Fans traffic in hope. This is how they operate: When it's raining, they see the sun, when it's sunny, they see a monsoon.

Now the Bears are telling fans that, finally, they have their guy. Williams is the franchise's latest dream merchant. He is the one to lead long-frustrated Bears fans to the promised land. Williams is the best quarterback prospect they've drafted in franchise history.

I remind my brother that the Bears have finished in the bottom half of the NFL in scoring in 25 of the last 31 seasons. Girard reminds me that last season Poles got wide receiver DJ Moore from the Carolina Panthers and that he traded for Pro Bowl wide receiver Keenan Allen in March. On April 25, the Bears took Washington wide receiver Rome Odunze with the ninth pick of the draft.

All I can say to my brother is what I always say: "Keep the faith."

He always does.

William C. Rhoden, the former award-winning sports columnist for The New York Times and author of Forty Million Dollar Slaves, is a writer-at-large for Andscape.