PHOENIX — Bears fans better wrap their minds around the team moving to Indiana. George McCaskey already has.Tradition and legacy are incredibly important to McCaskey, the Bears’ chairman and the grandson of George Halas, and the team has been in his family for more than a century. But as stadium plans in Hammond, Indiana, get increasingly serious, he is at peace with being the one who moves the team out of Illinois and assumes the fan base will move past its initial backlash to the idea.“I don’t think, in the end, it’s going to matter to people,” he said Wednesday at the end of the NFL annual meeting. “Back in 1976, the New York Football Giants went across state lines to New Jersey. They have been there ever since. The Jets joined them shortly thereafter. And then 35 years later, both teams had an opportunity to reevaluate their situations and recommitted to New Jersey.“And somehow, the Republic has survived.”That’s a glib response to fans who were irritated when president Kevin Warren went public last December, leading up to a massive game against the Packers, with the idea of building a stadium in Northwest Indiana. Related Bears president Kevin Warren targets late spring or early summer for stadium decision NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: Bears need to find stadium solution soon Halas Intrigue podcast: All quiet on the stadium front The Bears have played at Soldier Field since 1971, interrupted only by one season at the University of Illinois during renovations, and…
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