As the Chicago Bears’ 2024 season continues to unravel, George McCaskey has seemingly been tweeting through it.
There’s just one problem: the X account purporting to be the Chicago Bears owner while posting updates on the team’s ongoing coaching search is fake, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio has confirmed.
Nevertheless, the account has managed to amass more than 7,000 followers, including the likes of NFL P.R. executive Brian McCarthy, the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and FanDuel TV’s Kay Adams (ESPN’s Adam Schefter reportedly followed the account previously but has seemingly since unfollowed it). The account has gained notoriety in recent days following the Bears’ high profile firing of head coach Matt Eberflus and rumors/reports regarding the franchise being up for sale, which the fake McCaskey account denied.
Good Morning. The Chicago Bears are not for sale. Good Day! -George https://t.co/8Ud9v44ixc
— George McCaskey (@MccaskeyGeorge) December 5, 2024
The fake McCaskey account’s recent posts have generated hundreds of retweets, with most seemingly under the impression that it’s actually run by the Bears’ owner. It’s also worth noting that this account didn’t just pop up in the wake of Chicago firing its head coach; it was actually created in 2020, although it only began posing as McCaskey a few weeks ago.
Curiously, the account doesn’t appear to be attempting to embarrass the Bears — at least not overtly — and seems to be making a genuine attempt at impersonating McCaskey. Perhaps the biggest reason why so many have bought into the account being authentic is that it signs each of its posts with “-George,” which totally seems like something that a 68-year-old millionaire would do on social media.
The emergence of the fake McCaskey account comes in the same week that X announced a new policy to regulate parody/impersonator accounts. Either that policy has yet to go into effect or the McCaskey account has managed to fly under the radar, as it appears to be in clear violation of the social media platform’s new rules.
