Bears hire Ted Crews as special advisor to Kevin Warren and chief administrative officer
Ted Crews is taking his three Super Bowl rings to Halas Hall.
Crews, the longtime head of P.R. for the Chiefs, has been hired by the Bears. He'll serve as special advisor to president/CEO Kevin Warren and chief administrative officer.
Crews spent 12 years in Kansas City, rising to the title of executive V.P. of communications. He has 26 years of NFL experience.
It's a great hire for the Bears and a big loss for the Chiefs. Ted Crews gets it, plain and simple. He understands the role of media in the promotion of the sport (even when media might be critical of a team), and he has always been helpful and responsive and friendly when it comes to anything we've ever asked of him.
It's also rewarding to see someone who has spent so much time in and around the inner workings of an NFL team be entrusted to cross over from a P.R. job into something that entails greater responsibility and influence. More teams should be viewing P.R. professionals that way. So what if they never played or coached or scouted? At some point, a couple of decades or more of devoting their professional lives to the sport becomes highly valuable, in its own way.
The Bears will get something else from Crews. Like anyone who found a career in and around the NFL, there was an initial team that sparked the passion. For Crews, it was the Bears.
"That was my first favorite football team, the first team I remember following," Crews said. "When you have Walter Payton, Jim McMahon and the Fridge, I was into that team. I remember watching that team vividly, watching the NFC Championship Game when the snow started falling and the defense turned it up. So you are talking about a place where there is familiarity and a built-in affinity."
It's a win for the Bears and a win for Crews. It's also a problem for the Chiefs, who suddenly have some big shoes to fill.
