No, they were awful in their wins and their roster is trash. At 5-1 I’d have put the over-under at like 9-7. A playoff berth would just mean a lower draft pick (although it’s not like they use theme wisely anyway) and getting smashed in the first game.
I don’t think this is related to the organization being a disaster. If NE had played the first 6 games longer the bears if think poorly of them too.
Nope. Anyone able to think critically about this, and those fans are far and few between on the interwebs, would freely admit that that 5-1 record was a mirage. Even the optimists were saying we were “winning ugly” and that we might be that team that catches all the breaks this season, since there always seems to be one. I held out hope for maybe a half during the Colts game, figuring that maybe we were getting the hyper accurate and efficient version of Foles from 2013, but that didn’t last long.
As for the rest of the season, the Lions are in free fall but I have a hunch that they’ll get a short lived burst following the Patricia firing. I call that game a coin flip. The Texans seem to be getting right and will probably kill us, though with Fuller’s suspension maybe that changes things. The Vikings are going to light us up unless there’s some weird intra-divisional mojo. The Jags are getting Minshew back by then and I don’t love our chances, but their defense is dismal. So we still might limp to 8-8, but that shouldn’t save anyone’s job.
I don’t think that’s true, I’m not sure being a Jets fan is possible.
Sadly it is possible, I have friends that are Jets fans. Not many, but a few sad individuals.
They seem to have an inexplicable inability to develop or even bring in a decent QB. This is not a recent trend, it’s pretty much an all-time thing.
Quick, who are the best 3 QBs in Bears history? Who’d you come up with, Jim McMahon? Sid Luckman, whose career began in 1939? Um… Jay Cutler? Yeah, it’s that bad.
Not that this is a problem unique to the Bears, but it’s a significant deficit that no amount of anything else can really make up for, unless you’ve got a historically amazing defense e.g. '85 Bears, '00 Ravens.
And, until Cutler, most of the Bears’ career passing records were still held by Luckman, who retired in 1950, more than two decades before rule changes began to spawn the modern passing game.
Is Luckman their only QB ever that was considered good compared to contemporaries?
Part of the mystery of the quarterback position with the Bears, in the 70 years after Sid Luckman, and particularly in the Super Bowl era, is that it’s been very unusual for any guy to hold the starting position for more than a couple of seasons.
If you look at their post-Luckman history, there are some quarterbacks who were, arguably, above-average, at least for a season or two (Jay Cutler, Jim Miller, Erik Kramer, Jim McMahon, and going back much further, Billy Wade and Ed Brown), but they really haven’t had any sustained success at the position. McMahon was probably the biggest “star” of the lot, but that may have been as much for his personality as for his play, and injuries likely limited his effectiveness.
Seems the Bears and Browns have a similar issue… They can never find QBs. Baker Mayfield might be their first decent one since Bernie Kosar, and I don’t think the jury is really out on Mayfield yet. Aside from Kosar there was Otto Graham, the only Browns QB to be in the HoF, and Frank Ryan, who brought the most recent NFL Championship win to Cleveland (back in 1964). Aside from that a whole lot of nobodies.
I never really thought about it but that’s a big parallel. And the Browns haven’t had a defense like the Bears did in ‘85 either.
@Atamasama – that’s an interesting parallel. Like the Bears, the Browns have had a few other QBs who were good for a season or two (Derek Anderson, Brian Sipe, maybe Vinny Testaverde), but otherwise, it’s a lot of unremarkable guys.
When the Bears have been successful, it’s nearly always been because they’ve got a very good defense, and probably a good running game, as well. If you look at the Bears’ franchise page on Pro Football Reference, it shows the top 12 players in the team’s history, at least going back to 1960 (based on PFR’s “Approximate Value” rating) – ten out of the top twelve are defensive players. The two offensive players are running back Walter Payton, and offensive lineman Jay Hilgenberg.
Yes. Even when the Bears had a QB that had a decent statistical season, it was almost always out of character for that player and they immediately regress to the mean. And that decent season is never among the league leaders. The Bears have never had a 4000 yard passer and have only crested 3500 yards 4 times and 3000 yards 12 times…ever.
The Browns have probably been worse than the Bears since their re-establishment as a franchise in 1999 simply because they never signed a “quality” starter like Cutler, but had that not happened I think the Bears probably would be below them. All time, the Browns I think are clearly above the Bears because of Kosar. The Bears never had a player that good and Graham and Luckman cancel each other out.
It’s really really pathetic.
Exactly so. What’s also interesting is that, in addition to a history of not-very-good quarterbacks, the Bears also have a history of mediocre receiving corps.
In a league that’s more and more pass-happy, the Bears’ career leader in receiving yards is still Johnny Morris, and he retired 53 years ago. Two Bears have more career receptions than Morris, and they’re both running backs (Walter Payton and Matt Forte).
They did draft a really good tight end in the first round in 2007 – Greg Olsen – but after four years, they decided he wasn’t a good fit, and they traded him to the Panthers, where he went on to be a consistently very good TE, and he’s still playing and contributing in Seattle today.
I view that as a more of a symptom than anything else. We’ve had several good-to-great WRs, but they all get fed up and leave. Or else their quality never gets a chance to be displayed. And if you’re a FA, you’d have to be a glutton for punishment to sign here.
The Olsen thing was shockingly stupid when it happened, fuck Mike Martz.
I was talking about the Bears’ ongoing QB deficit recently with a friend and did some research into how they’ve approached this key position. Here are the only “big swings” (first round picks, trades or major free agent signings) they’ve taken at QB since 1985:
So that’s it. In 35 years, just 6 swings at getting a franchise QB. Some singles, but mostly whiffs. (Very few lower picks, also.) And it’s not like they had a Hall of Famer all that time that made it a non-priority. Most of those years they were desperate for better QB play. But other needs somehow took priority.
Let this fact soak in a minute…
Statistically speaking, it’s pretty safe to say that Mitch Trubisky is the third best passer the Bears have ever had.
Two comments: I’d characterize as Grossman getting dragged to a SB rather than taking them there. That team was quite good other than QB.
Trubisky is extra infuriating given two superstars were taken after him AND he was extremely unproven.
Please, don’t even get me started on the Trubisky-Watson-Mahomes thing. I’m not wearing a cuff right now but I promise you my blood pressure is elevated.
Good point. The Bears have had guys like Bobby Engram, Alshon Jeffrey, and Brandon Marshall, who they’ve chased off, and it looks like they’re about to do the same with Allen Robinson.
Bobby Engram and Alshon are huge “mehs” to me. Alshon had one good year when he was targeted almost 150 times, and he’s rarely reliable. Brandon Marshall chased himself off. Allen Robinson is for sure a stud, but I do think the Bears would pay him if it weren’t for the Covid drop in salary cap numbers (although they have invested a huge chunk of their salary cap on their defensive line doesn’t help).
I’m unsure of what to think about the fact that the Bears chose Trubisky over Mahomes and Watson and haven’t drafted a black QB (including passing on Russell Wilson) in 43 years. I’m having a hard time convincing myself it’s just a coincidence, but I think it’s much, much more unconscious biases than conscious decisionmaking.
To be fair, every team in the NFL passed on Russell Wilson – twice! He was a third round pick.
I know people who suspect Trubisky was picked over Watson due to race, but there’s absolutely nothing to substantiate that.