NFL Week 6 scores and live updates: Jaguars vs. Bears in London, channel, schedule, inactives, predictions and odds

WARE, England — Chicago Bears chairman George McCaskey learned something new in the week leading up to the franchise’s third regular-season game abroad.

In August 1960, the Bears played a preseason game against the New York Giants in Toronto. McCaskey was only 4 years old then. The two teams played each other on the 110-yard Canadian field, and according to the New York Times story from the 16-7 Bears win, it was the first game between two NFL teams in Canada.

It symbolized, to McCaskey, another example of the Bears being on the forefront of something that would soon become the norm in the NFL — games in other countries. Twenty-six years later in 1986, the Bears were the first NFL team to play in London.

McCaskey quipped that he’s not bitter that he didn’t get to go on that trip. His brother Brian, then an assistant trainer, did get to attend the “American Bowl” against the Dallas Cowboys.

“We’re just coming off the Super Bowl, and these guys were like rock stars,” McCaskey said. “They captured the attention of people who weren’t even fans of American football. It was novel. Even now, as recently as 2019, the people in the stands, they seem excited that there’s an event.”

McCaskey spoke with The Athletic from Hanbury Manor in Ware, the home for the Bears during the week before their game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

A member of the league’s international committee, McCaskey has certainly had a front-row seat to the NFL’s expansion of the international series, from one game a year to four, and soon there will be eight. The 17-game season, which meant nine home games for one conference, created a situation where even the Bears would have to give up a Soldier Field game and come to London for a “home game.”

“The argument that was presented was, you’re not losing a home game,” McCaskey said. “You’re going to play internationally when you would have ‘nine’ home games. Chicago fans are still getting eight regular-season games at Soldier Field. We’re making ourselves available to a global audience. That’s what Michael Scott would call a win-win-win situation.”

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