A Bitter Bears End

Well, the Cubs and Hawks have been able to revitalize their franchises. I'm very much hoping that they Bears can do the same. Everyone (myself included) thought they had enough talent on the roster to be competitive this year. I still think that's true on the offense.

I'm a little surprised that they got rid of the GM. I had trepidation about the head coach, but there were pieces that needed to be put into place and the GM got them, mostly. I guess there was never as meteoric a shift in the defense, though. That was a difficult position, with all of the aging pro-bowl players trying to play out their contracts under a new defensive scheme.

I think they have to hold Cutler (and anyone else) until there's a new GM and head coach - especially since they're on the hook for so much guaranteed money - but draft a future QB.

Regarding Cutler, it's hard to ignore his numbers - he's the best QB for stats in my lifetime, but this is the worst Bears team I can remember. That might become Cutler's legacy. He performed well individually in Denver, but almost never got to the playoffs. The intangibles (leadership) are missing, and could be the difference between a Jay Cutler and a Brett Favre.

When Lovie got fired, the goal was to put the staff in place to give Cutler the chance to succeed he hadn't yet gotten since choosing to come to Chicago. It sure looked like they did that. The expected attrition in the defense also occurred, but when the offense floundered, there was essentially nothing left on which to hang a hat.

When the search for a head coach to replace Lovie was underway, I really hoped they would talk to Dave Toub to fill his shoes. I still believe that moving Toub to HC and somehow holding on to Rod Marinelli would have meant that Urlacher could have played another year and retired on his own terms. I think there wouldn't have been the drop off in defensive play that we saw last year, and then Toub and a new OC could have focused on updating the line and the overall offensive scheme.

In fact, with Toub as HC, they still could have hired Joe DeCamillis and there probably wouldn't have been as much of a drop in production. Instead, Toub has continued his thorough coaching style in Kansas City. Just a thought - Mike Ditka was a special teams coordinator before taking the reigns with the Bears.

One more thought - the Bears might want to find a GM, coach, or coordinator from Boston. Tom Thibodeau and Theo Epstein seem to be working so far...

The Cherry on the Poop Sundae

An interesting postulate was posed on the radio this morning - if you swapped Cutler for Rodgers, would the Packers suck and would the Bears be elevated? Seems like a pretty obvious answer (yes to both), but it's predicated on other stuff, like the connection with coaches, management, and fans, for example. And really, it's a moot point now.

This was the "no excuses" year for Cutler, but if that's how it was presented, and we already know him to be a little sensitive and hot-headed (that's why he's in Chicago in the first place), then I can see why maybe having all of the tools he needed still didn't pan out as expected.

And so this morning, they announced that Cutler would not be the starting QB this week. I had already benched him in my fantasy league, because he was a liability last week, and not for lack of ability. This has become a mental issue.

Shame on the Bears for letting it get to this point, too. I don't doubt that Aaron Kromer was right in what he leaked to the NFL Network reporter. And if that's true, shame on him for not taking action instead of whining about it to the press. That stuff should have been weeded out in the pre-season.

Worse, Cutler is the highest-paid QB in the league right now. His numbers have been good - impressive, even - but the big one that keeps evading him is playoff wins. Instead of rewarding him, make him earn the money with playoff wins. Make him gamble on himself - especially since the Bears rigged the deck in his favor.

Now, you have a highly-touted and respected coach making a roster change for garbage games. Some possible reasons:

1. They are genuinely interested in seeing what Clausen can do. I find this to be the least likely scenario. If they were truly interested, there were blowout games where he could have seen a few minutes during the season. Plus, the rest of the team has already checked out, so his supporting cast will be limited in effort.
2. Deferred punishment. Possible - there is conjecture that they planned to bench him last week but the Kromer debacle put that on the shelf so as not to appear to pile on. As I said above - the timing on the Kromer thing could not have been worse. This option makes sense based on Jay's play and demeanor during this past game.
3. Indictment of Emery. I have been amazed at the pieces Emery has put together on the offense. There are few weak spots, but they're not gaping holes, and they've even withstood injury this year. This was done to give Cutler the tools he needed, but the cost was neglect on the defensive side of the ball, but more importantly, at backup QB. With all those things in place, what happens if Cutler gets hurt? There's a placeholder at best, not his successor, in the wings.

If Clausen comes out swinging and looks good in some garbage time, there is the possibility that he plays himself into a supporting role next year. If they ultimately part ways with Cutler (or he takes a walk), Clausen's suddenly the de facto starter. And then we're back to the dumpster fire of an offense from previous years, but no defense to mop up the mess.

From a macro perspective, what head coaching candidate would want to stick his neck out and take a shot at running this team in the current state it's in? What pro-bowl safety would want to come in and call plays and align players in a scheme that has no personality, and mostly broken personnel? I'm averse to change, but I am having a hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here.

Pre-Post Mortem on the Bears

As if losing wasn't enough to manage, now there's internal strife, with the OC taking shots at the QB to an NFL journalist. Sure, he may not have meant things in the way that they were taken ("buyer's remorse" only makes sense - I'm sure that even Jay Cutler has it to a degree), but Aaron Kromer should know better. Especially after witnessing bounty-gate first hand.

But, Doug Baffone (former Bears teammate to Butkus and Sayers) said what we all know is true, but hate to admit: the grand tradition of Bears football is a sham. The team has been nearer to the bottom of the pile than the top for most of my life. We've had great players - sometimes a few at a time - but only one great team. And even that team underachieved considering the talent it had on board. Hell, even the year they did go all the way, they didn't give Walter the ball at the goal line.

I realize that that last point is just an emotional gripe, but maybe that's my issue with the team (perhaps the game) in general. It's a business now, and the emotional connection is obscured by the opportunity to earn lottery-level money. When an under-performing Jay Cutler is the highest-paid quarterback in the league, that is troublesome on a number of levels.

1. He's not the best QB in the league, but he's the highest paid. Other players would then naturally assume that they should be paid more than they're worth, but they're not, because all the money is going to Jay. A fertile field for resentment - especially once games start slipping away on QB miscues.&
2. On his radio show, in the year before his contract extension, Jay talked about taking a "home town discount" to be here and ensure that the proper pieces were around him. Weeks later, on his show, he backed off of that notion. I'm guessing his agent got to him and corrected that, but that's the issue. I don't think Jay sought the biggest QB contract in the league, but if it was offered, why would he not take it? He might not want that extra pressure and scrutiny, but he's where he wanted to be and that's a boat load of money.
3. Paying him so much means that other areas of the team are neglected. They drafted Kyle Fuller, but that was clearly not enough to overcome serious deficiencies in the rest of the defense. No pass rush leads to shaky linebacking, which means that even if the secondary was average, they'd look horrible on this squad. I have my suspicions that they're not average in the first place, however.
4. I've not met a person who thinks Josh McCown was a long-term answer at QB for the Bears, but he showed flashes of being as good as Jay, and he was a significant bargain in comparison. If I remember my history correctly, he was more of the reclamation project material that Trestman was known for (Rich Gannon, for example) than Jay Cutler. It could be the difference between someone giving themselves over to the system vs. someone thinking they know better than the system (with the paycheck to back up the bravado).

I'm not a Jay hater, but he's got protection and receivers and still makes bad decisions. When I watch Aaron Rodgers, I see confidence and accuracy. When I watch Cutler, I see fear and mistrust. Again, an assessment of emotions, which are pretty difficult to quantify.

Radio listeners tend to focus on Jay's facial expressions (or lack of) and demeanor. They don't like Trestman's seeming lack of concern or Marshall's outbursts in the locker room. On paper, everything pointed to a deep run into the playoffs at a minimum. In reality, it seems like there's none of the camaraderie or trust that was discussed in the off season. Trestman might be helping to turn the players into better men, but he's certainly not showing his work on the football field.

Phil Emery is taking some of the heat because his draft picks are performing at around 50% (some good, some very bad) and his choice of coaches seems to be an abject failure. The team went from a 10-6 record to 8-8, and now they're looking at 8-8 as a best case scenario with some record-breaking losses on the books. Baffone thinks the issue starts higher than Emery.

It's possible that the grand tradition of the Bears during my lifetime is actually to underachieve and squander the talent they are able to acquire. Sometimes, fixing a football issue doesn't require the guy with the best stats, but the guy with the biggest heart. Again, that's hard to quantify, and risky. The less risky move is to go with the stats, but then they've built a paper team, not a real one. To paraphrase Buffone, they're not supposed to be playing chess, they're playing football. It's possible that the McCaskey family is better at chess.

Bye Bye Briggs (Redux)

I won't lose any sleep over the departure of Lance Briggs. He was a great individual player, but benefited from playing next to one of the all-time greats in Brian Urlacher. He was fast, nimble, and a sure tackler, but also pretty selfish. And that's not new: http://fledglingtimes.blogspot.com/2007/03/bye-bye-lbriggs.html
In a nutshell, he was a rookie phenom and held his own next to Urlacher in what was probably the best linebacker tandem in the NFL for quite a while. He existed in a system that was focused on the defense, so aside from Ulacher, he also had pro bowl-quality support on the line and in the secondary. His play spoke for him, which became an issue when Urlacher retired and the coaching staff he had been with for many years was ousted.

As a fan, I expected him to be the de facto leader and take the reigns in the locker room. Even if his play or ability to stay healthy was diminished, he could still lead. Turns out he had no interest in that. He had enough interest in starting a restaurant in California that he missed time with his team to attend the opening. This is not new for him; in 2007, he announced that he would not play another snap for the Chicago Bears because he didn't like the offer they gave him on a new contract. He demanded to be traded. The illusion of any kind of allegiance to the Bears or their fans was out the window way back then. (For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Briggs)

In the meantime, his agent couldn't find him a better deal anywhere else (surprise, surprise) so he came back to the table more amenable to nearly the same offer he got the previous year. So, $33 million over 7 years, if I recall correctly. Nothing to sneeze at, but I think his ingratitude toward the Bears was not only ill-conceived, but also helped to cement a reputation that the organization was cheap and didn't value its players. In the case of Lance, I side with the organization. He was good, but Urlacher was the great one.

A quick aside: don't forget that the first thing Lance did when he finally got the big contract was to buy a Lamborghini and wrap it around a telephone pole, leave the scene of the accident, then call police and make up a story about his new car being stolen. What a colossal waste of money and resources. Read this article to see the kind of sway the Chicago Bears had over city infrastructure, too: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/bears/2007-08-27-briggs-car_N.htm

In 2011, he asked to be traded again, and again was offered an extension. That runs out at the end of this season, and on top of all the other negativity this year has brought, if management re-signs him or extends him again, it better only be ceremonial (so he can retire as a Bear) or fans will respond.

All told, I'm glad Briggs was a Bear. I wish he would have been more of a team guy and a leader - especially once Urlacher left the building. The Bears are the oldest team in the league right now and it's time to start correcting that stat. My hope is that they draft more players like Urlacher and less like Briggs.