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.