I went to the football thread to post about the Hammond Bear and didn't see anything.
It never crossed my mind to look in the obituary thread.
How can you kill something that was already a zombie undead. The McCaskeys did a hell of a job making a lot of money exploiting a bunch of dumb fucks sitting around drinking beer and thinking it's still 1985 while putting out an inferior product.
The real reason for the State to play hardball is maybe, just maybe, something magical could happen and they sell the team. Denver had some beloved owners back in the day, but they were in the end mediocre and underfunded. When Bowlen came in and invested in the team, they were consistently better. Now, having the team owned by Walmart, money isn't ever the issue. The Bears owners are cheap - their money all comes from winning the Grandfather lottery.