Yes, I was Tyler Dunne's Source for the Caleb Williams Story, But You Weren't Given the Context

 By now, most of you are probably aware of the Tyler Dunne article series about the Caleb Williams drama last season that’s taken Chicago Media by storm: House of Dysfunction, Part I: The Curious Case of Caleb Williams, as well as House of Dysfunction, Part II: Inside the Chicago Bears' "rigged trial" at No. 1 overall. 

To all the readers, fans, and heartbroken supporters of Caleb Williams who’ve been affected by the frankly stunning series of scandals revealed by Tyler’s article and its anonymous source, I have an apology, and a confession;

The anonymous source of Tyler Dunne’s article series—

—was me.

“Patrick, you’ve written some of the most important journalism in Chicago Bears history! You run the only Bears podcast! How could you sell out your team like that? Your integrity? Your millions of fans?”

That’s why I had to get this out there - I’ve received so many messages of concern and disappointment from our millions of Bear Weather Fans… fans all over the globe, and they deserve an explanation. Because it’s true - every excerpt you see in Tyler Dunne’s article series was supplied by me, in writing, personally. All of the excerpts came directly from my manuscript, which I’ve been working on all offseason, and had sent to Tyler to get his professional opinion as a respected writer of many similar works. And while I’m thankful the Chicago Bears audience seems to have responded to my writing, I’m disappointed that Tyler shared so many excerpts of what was supposed to be a private work without asking me. I never intended the work to be seen by a wide audience, and with just the selected excerpts Tyler shared, there is some context missing that I feel is pretty important to the understanding of the situation.

So, for you, beloved readers and fans of Bear Weather Fans, below are the complete and unadulterated pages providing context for some of the excerpts Tyler Dunne shared. Which, again, thankful for a response, but also I do want to emphasize that these were intended for a private work.

Tyler included this excerpt, taken directly from my work, thankfully unaltered, but unfortunately missing context:

In the wake of two firings, heartbreaking defeats, staggering to the finish line of an agonizing 5-12 season, interim head coach Thomas Brown tried to explain something to his starting quarterback and… no. Williams was not having it.

An auto-response kicked in.

As he had done many times to many coaches all season, Williams turned his head and walked away. Shane Waldron, before getting fired as offensive coordinator, used to stay quiet. Not Brown. Not a stern, blunt, old-school coach who believed this 22-year-old crossed a line of disrespect. The typically calm coach lost it. On the headset, another Bears assistant coach recalls Brown pressing the mic to finish his conversation: “Get your ass back here right now! Don’t fucking walk away when I’m talking to you!”

Unfazed, Williams sashayed away. Right back to the huddle.

However, the context is missing from my original writing, which again I have to stress I didn’t expect a mass audience to see:

So there you go. It seems like a lot of readers were concerned about the relationship between Caleb and Thomas Brown, but hopefully the full context illuminates that their relationship in the original writing is more nuanced. More complex. 

Now, there may come some questions about the nature of my full manuscript, and I again have to emphasize that we're just here to provide context to the article. Questions about the rest aren't pertinent here.

Another excerpt in Tyler's article:

This glitzy gazelle was universally extolled as the charismatic, electric, dare we say Mahomesian playmaker these Bears have lacked since inception in 1919. OTAs arrived, coaches unwrapped this gift from the football gods who’ve cursed this organization for so long and… yikes.

However, again there's context that I feel is necessary missing from my original manuscript:

So, again, it seems like readers came away with a different picture of the relationship with Ryan Poles than what the full context depicts. Again, I'm not thrilled that my proprietary writing, intended for personal use, was leaked by Tyler without my consent, so just let's cool it on any further questions there.

Another section that caused a lot of commotion was the draft room excerpt:

This was no accident. Multiple people inside this 2024 draft meeting say they knew exactly what Ryan Poles was up to. “He’s not sneaky,” recalls one scout, “and he thinks he is.” The Chicago Bears general manager, it appeared, was implanting the worst possible first impression he could inside the minds of his personnel men.

It wasn’t pretty. Under constant duress, he completed less than half of his passes vs. Clemson. He ran for his life vs. Miami.

Clicker in hand, at the center of the room, Poles repeatedly hit rewind on errant passes and it didn’t take long for those echoes of “Geez!” to turn into outright laughter. Poles and his confidants were not interested in sparking a substantive conversation about the North Carolina quarterback. This draft meeting resembled a bully in the high school cafeteria seeking toadies — any veneer of scouting objectivity was shed.

Maye escaped free runners, threw at awkward angles, sailed incompletions. At times, the spiral of his ball was off. Other times, the receiver broke in and the ball was thrown out. All funky plays were magnified and mocked to make it appear as if this is exactly who he’d become as a pro quarterback.

Poles chimed in.

“This tape makes my chest tight,” one source recalls the GM saying.

All but a select few scouts broke out in laughter.

However, again readers have asked for the full context:

So again, context is necessary to understand the excerpt, and again I will not be answering questions on my manuscript. It was private, the kind of thing writers like me and Tyler Dunne make for eachother all the time. 

It's no big deal. Just drop it.

Anyways, hope that clears everything up. It was a shame to see so many headlines taking these clearly out-of-context quotes from my manuscript without proper context or attribution to the original author. But also I won't be answering any questions about the writing that was shared without my consent in what is, let's face it, basically a hippa violation for creatives, really.

-Patrick

PS:

Also, unrelated, but if anyone in the fanfic community is passionate and discrete, I have a need for an editor that just opened up. Will provide samples upon request.