Virginia McCaskey will travel to Detroit for Bears’ opener

Virginia McCaskey, the Bears’ 97-year-old matriarch, won’t let the coronavirus stop her from watching games in person. She will travel to attend the season opener Sunday in Detroit, Bears chairman George McCaskey said Thursday.

“She’s always eager to start the season,” George McCaskey said. “But to say that she’s especially eager this season is an understatement. I talked to her a couple of weeks ago and said, ‘So I take it you will do whatever is required of you to attend the games?’ And she paused and said, ‘Yes.’ In that tone — I think you have heard yourself — leaving no doubt about where she stands.”

George McCaskey has been careful during the pandemic. Thursday was the second day he’d entered Halas Hall since mid-March. He has never met quarterback Nick Foles, to whom his team guaranteed $21 million, in person.

Virginia McCaskey will attend all home games and, while her son said they’d take it week by week, will try to go to each road game. She resumed a regular routine during the pandemic: daily morning mass and three-times-per-week light workouts.

Coach Matt Nagy was fired up by the news.

“That does not surprise me at all,” Nagy said. ‘‘She is just so resilient. Who she is as a person, hearing that she’s going to be there, it gets you really excited. What this team and this organization, this city, these fans and everybody, what everybody means to her as players and coaches, to have her support there at the game is what it’s all about.”