http://www.suntimes.com/sports/foot...s-deserve-better-than-this-clueless-crew.html
Bears fans deserve better than this clueless crew
BY RICK MORRISSEY Sports Columnist October 27, 2014 9:47PM
Ladies and gentlemen, your Chicago Bears (and you can have them):
The McCaskeys.
Phil Emery.
Marc Trestman.
Jay Cutler.
What did Chicago do to deserve these people? Was it something we said? Did we take George Halas’ name in vain? Or are we simply the butt of some cosmic joke?
The franchise of Bill George, Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka, Dan Hampton and Walter Payton finds itself eyeballing rock bottom after a 51-23 abomination in New England on Sunday.
It has been 28 1/2 seasons since the Bears won a Super Bowl, and there is not a wisp of a suggestion that they are close to another one. This is an organization that for some bizarre reason considers itself special but one that keeps hiring rubes to represent what it believes is the greater Gooberville metro area, population 9.52 million.
I keep going back to the process that led the Bears to hire Jerry Angelo as general manager in 2001. A franchise purportedly in the football business retained a search firm to identify the best candidates for the job. And that firm came up with a man who had been in the team’s division for years. Nice sleuthing.
So it should come as no surprise that the Bears are again having splash fights in an oil spill of their own making. They have lost four of their last five games, and no one on the football side, from Emery to Trestman to Cutler, seems to have any idea how to fix this thing. Why would they? One is a former strength coach who had never been a general manager before Chicago. One had never been a head coach in what we commonly refer to as “the United States.’’ And one is Jay Cutler.
The best you can say about the McCaskey family, which owns the team, is that it seems to mean well. Try putting that on your resume. The most passionate I’ve seen any of them is when chairman George McCaskey raced to defend NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during the Ray Rice scandal. Perhaps that had something to do with Goodell’s gift for making teams richer. Perhaps.
For all of you who want someone fired for this mess, understand that the McCaskeys aren’t really an ownership group. They’re an ice age. They don’t move, and they don’t fire anybody, especially themselves.
We shouldn’t have to hold on to Butkus and Mike Singletary for sustenance. We shouldn’t be talking about Jim Finks and Ditka as if the 1980s were yesterday. But they were leaders, and all we’ve had since is a jumble of faint imitations. The McCaskeys fired Ditka because they thought he had become bigger than the franchise. The steady trickle of dullness and mediocrity continues to this day.
When you have weak ownership, you’re in danger of getting someone like Emery, who has more power than anyone of his modest background and success deserves. He has muscled his way into deciding everything about the on-field product.
Remember, he hired Trestman and continues to call Cutler, whom he gave $54 million to in guaranteed money, an “elite’’ quarterback. Remember, he signed a defensive end who was so unfamiliar with a sack that he tore a knee ligament celebrating his first one of the season Sunday. Mel Tucker’s defensive plan and Emery’s defensive acquisitions played a huge role in the Bears giving up a team-record 38 first-half points against the Patriots.
Trestman might be blessed with a sharp mind, but he has been unable to adjust during games. When the opposing coach makes a move, you can almost hear the scrape of a chair being pushed back as Trestman walks away from the chessboard. That happened in the loss to the Dolphins, and it happened in the embarrassment against the Patriots. Joe Philbin or Bill Belichick — the opponent doesn’t seem to matter to Trestman, who passes when he should be running and runs when he should be passing. He’s supposed to be smarter than this.
And then there’s Cutler. He can’t go more than a game or two without revealing himself to be a creature incapable of consistently doing the right thing. No one can turn him into a winner. But you’ll never hear that from the Bears, who wouldn’t know a quarterback from a koala. Trestman is supposed to be the Quarterback Whisperer. He’s more like the Quarterback Dog Whistle That No One Can Hear.
All the corporate noise about “winning the press conference’’ and “managing the message’’ are more important to the Bears than “winning games” and “managing not to get killed by New England.’’ So Emery finally met with the media Monday for the first time in months and said what he thought were all the right things about responsibility and getting back to work. And said nothing.
A 3-5 record should have him on high alert for his job, but when no one in the organization knows enough football to realize the general manager is in over his head, why should he be concerned?
Remind me again: What did Chicago do to deserve this?
Bears fans deserve better than this clueless crew
BY RICK MORRISSEY Sports Columnist October 27, 2014 9:47PM
Ladies and gentlemen, your Chicago Bears (and you can have them):
The McCaskeys.
Phil Emery.
Marc Trestman.
Jay Cutler.
What did Chicago do to deserve these people? Was it something we said? Did we take George Halas’ name in vain? Or are we simply the butt of some cosmic joke?
The franchise of Bill George, Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka, Dan Hampton and Walter Payton finds itself eyeballing rock bottom after a 51-23 abomination in New England on Sunday.
It has been 28 1/2 seasons since the Bears won a Super Bowl, and there is not a wisp of a suggestion that they are close to another one. This is an organization that for some bizarre reason considers itself special but one that keeps hiring rubes to represent what it believes is the greater Gooberville metro area, population 9.52 million.
I keep going back to the process that led the Bears to hire Jerry Angelo as general manager in 2001. A franchise purportedly in the football business retained a search firm to identify the best candidates for the job. And that firm came up with a man who had been in the team’s division for years. Nice sleuthing.
So it should come as no surprise that the Bears are again having splash fights in an oil spill of their own making. They have lost four of their last five games, and no one on the football side, from Emery to Trestman to Cutler, seems to have any idea how to fix this thing. Why would they? One is a former strength coach who had never been a general manager before Chicago. One had never been a head coach in what we commonly refer to as “the United States.’’ And one is Jay Cutler.
The best you can say about the McCaskey family, which owns the team, is that it seems to mean well. Try putting that on your resume. The most passionate I’ve seen any of them is when chairman George McCaskey raced to defend NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during the Ray Rice scandal. Perhaps that had something to do with Goodell’s gift for making teams richer. Perhaps.
For all of you who want someone fired for this mess, understand that the McCaskeys aren’t really an ownership group. They’re an ice age. They don’t move, and they don’t fire anybody, especially themselves.
We shouldn’t have to hold on to Butkus and Mike Singletary for sustenance. We shouldn’t be talking about Jim Finks and Ditka as if the 1980s were yesterday. But they were leaders, and all we’ve had since is a jumble of faint imitations. The McCaskeys fired Ditka because they thought he had become bigger than the franchise. The steady trickle of dullness and mediocrity continues to this day.
When you have weak ownership, you’re in danger of getting someone like Emery, who has more power than anyone of his modest background and success deserves. He has muscled his way into deciding everything about the on-field product.
Remember, he hired Trestman and continues to call Cutler, whom he gave $54 million to in guaranteed money, an “elite’’ quarterback. Remember, he signed a defensive end who was so unfamiliar with a sack that he tore a knee ligament celebrating his first one of the season Sunday. Mel Tucker’s defensive plan and Emery’s defensive acquisitions played a huge role in the Bears giving up a team-record 38 first-half points against the Patriots.
Trestman might be blessed with a sharp mind, but he has been unable to adjust during games. When the opposing coach makes a move, you can almost hear the scrape of a chair being pushed back as Trestman walks away from the chessboard. That happened in the loss to the Dolphins, and it happened in the embarrassment against the Patriots. Joe Philbin or Bill Belichick — the opponent doesn’t seem to matter to Trestman, who passes when he should be running and runs when he should be passing. He’s supposed to be smarter than this.
And then there’s Cutler. He can’t go more than a game or two without revealing himself to be a creature incapable of consistently doing the right thing. No one can turn him into a winner. But you’ll never hear that from the Bears, who wouldn’t know a quarterback from a koala. Trestman is supposed to be the Quarterback Whisperer. He’s more like the Quarterback Dog Whistle That No One Can Hear.
All the corporate noise about “winning the press conference’’ and “managing the message’’ are more important to the Bears than “winning games” and “managing not to get killed by New England.’’ So Emery finally met with the media Monday for the first time in months and said what he thought were all the right things about responsibility and getting back to work. And said nothing.
A 3-5 record should have him on high alert for his job, but when no one in the organization knows enough football to realize the general manager is in over his head, why should he be concerned?
Remind me again: What did Chicago do to deserve this?
