End of a Bears era with Fred Mitchell closing out

Sunday's Bears-Broncos game is the final one for a Chicago sports giant, and it warrants acknowledging.

When I left a very, very good situation as the business writer and columnist with the Daily Herald and took over as the Herald’s Bears beat writer, one of my worries was what the daily workplace would be like. I had an incredible group of colleagues in the Herald news offices and now I was going where everyone in the media room at Bears headquarters was competition.

I shouldn’t have worried, because of one individual in particular.

Fred Mitchell was on the Bears for the Tribune at the time, something of a legend because of being the only journalist in Chicago to have been the lead beat…