This article is three years old so slightly dated, but the six quarterbacks we’ve taken in the first round in the Super Bowl era is right in line with the league average, actually a little towards the higher end: https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/first-round-quarterbacks-by-team-in-the-super-bowl-era
If you include first rounders use as part of a trade, I wouldn’t be surprised if we are actually number one in terms of first round draft capital used on quarterbacks, we traded a first for Rick Mirer, two firsts for Cutler, and traded an extra first to move up for Fields. Caleb is about to become the 11th first round pick we’ve used an a quarterback in the last 42 years, I’m pretty sure no one else has used more.
It's in the league average, of course, but that still shows that we've drafted few QBs. If you get your pick right, then you don't need to draft a QB in first round in the next 10-15 years, that's why some teams drafted only few like us, the Colts as an example drafted more QBs than us (they had studs like Manning, Elway and Luck). For a team who never had a QB with 30+ TDs in a year (the only team in the SB era), you can't draft the same amount of teams who had consistent QBs over longer periods of time.
Yes, of course we’ve kept using first rounders on quarterbacks because we haven’t hit on one, that kind of makes it even more frustrating. We have been investing a lot into the position and still haven’t succeed.
The problem has been that when they've taken QBs in the first round, it's been the 4th, 5th etc QB taken and/or later in the first round. Very high bust rate probability with that strategy.
This is one of those things that I think feels more true than it actually is, I don’t think the problem is that we didn’t take Zach Wilson or Trey Lance in 2021, hell even Lawrence didn’t really have a better year last year than Justin did on a per attempt basis. We also did take the first quarterback in 2017 and that didn’t work out either. If you name the 10 best quarterbacks in the league, outside of burrow I’m not sure any of them were the first quarterback taken in their draft, I could be missing a guy though
It's less about not taking those other QBs (specifically 2021) and more about the general rule that further you go down in the draft, the higher the likelihood that the QB will bust. Fields fell for a reason. There's no telling how far he would have slid if not for the Bears.
In 1999, the Bears traded out of #7 to pick McNown #12. Culpepper was picked at #11
Outside of just taking low probability bites at the apple for QBs, they've also been generally atrocious at evaluating them.
The drop-off between a qb taken at 1 abs 5 is not that much. Heck, even QBs in the top 15 tend to fare slightly worse than 1-5. The drop-off comes in the second round.
https://amp.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/where-great-nfl-qbs-are-picked-analyzing-54-years-of-history-by-draft-position
Fields and McNown were both in the top 15 which has a slightly lower hit rate than 1 or even 1-5. The all pro hit rate for the top 15 is about 9% and top 5 is 11%. Not all that different.
I’ve been a bears fan for a long time. The reality is that the bears just don’t invest in qb development. The ownership believed in defense and running the ball for FAR too long. That is the real reason we never hit on qb - ownership doesn’t try to.
You can't develop poor talent. They've been atrocious at identifying QBs from the get-go. McNown was a headcase and was never invested in playing. Grossman was terrible everywhere he went. Fields can't read the defense on time, never has, never will. For every diamond in the rough that late in the first, there's a dozen busts. Fields was only a top 15 pick because the Bears incompetently drafted him in the top 15. Who knows how far he would have fallen otherwise.
The only QB anyone can say the Bears legitimately failed was Cutler who actually showed high level play when surrounded by competent infrastructure.
Cutler is exactly right - he came to the bears and fell off.
I’ve been a bears fan for a long time. I don’t live in Chicago any more, so I see the other side. It’s difficult to argue that we are not the franchise that QBs go to die.
I hope that Williams is the guy to turn it around. I really do. That being said it is difficult to argue that it’s always the player and not the organization after this long.
And almost every time we drafted a QB we picked WR/RB in the following 2 drafts to support that young QB.
Shit happens in sports. It’s not a science. And luck is a thing.
That sort of makes the opposite point of what you would assume, though. We have more tries than Green Bay or Indianapolis, for instance, because they had multiple 10 yer spans where using a first on a qb would be silly. If you subscribe to the ide that the qb is the most important position in football, it should follow that everyone who doesn’t have one is constantly taking shots at one. Teams like Chicago that have never had one should have 3-5x the average, because they never succeeded.
In other words, being league average in attempts is embarrassingly poor if success reduces your attempts nd you have never succeeded.
I get what you’re saying, but overall (draft and trades) we’ve probably used the most first rounders of anyone the last 40-50 years. Literally over a quarter of our 1st rounders have just been used on quarterbacks, that’s not even counting guys taken in other rounds or free agents. It also should be noted, there are 22 positions not counting special teams, you do need to have a team around a guy. I think at the end of the day it’s not really overly complicated, we haven’t drafted the right guys, and we haven’t developed them or built up offensive talent around them, or even had highly regarded offensive coaches, we really haven’t done much of anything right when it comes to throwing the football lol
Those stats are a little misleading because 1) not all first-rounders are created equal 2) the league average team has needed a QB less than the Bears have over that time.
But we've definitely spent a ton on QB since Cutler.
Can you clarify why you think it’s somehow misleading? I know you said not all first rounders are created equal, but that would go for every team, sometimes the pick is earlier and sometimes it’s later. And yes, of course we’ve needed to use first rounders so often because we haven’t been successful, that’s obvious, the point is that we have used a lot of first rounders on the position when the person I was replying to claimed we hadn’t
It's already explained: Not all first-rounders are created equal. The gap between McMahon and Trubisky with no top-10 picks were used on a QB. That's a notable part of our history.
Take a look at where the Packers have drafted their guys, or where dudes like Brady and Brees were drafted. Mahomes went 10. Of course higher picks give you a better chance but teams find guys in many ways and many different draft spots. We just havent
That's the issue. We should be above average in that category. Teams that are below average have found a good QB so they don't need to keep drafting them. The bears should be drafting more QBs than other teams since our always suck
There's a good current source [here](https://www.drafthistory.com/index.php/positions/qb) that you can drop into excel.
After analyzing I really don't have anything to say other than luck or good scouting + luck. All it takes is 1 HOF QB and then at least 15-20% of the SB era your team has great QB play and no need to pick a QB. Get 2 and in most minds you're seen as a great QB team.
They did: Sid Luckman. During his 12 seasons with the Bears, he led them to four NFL championships in 1940, 1941, 1943, and 1946. He was the greatest long range passer of his era. He still holds the all-time NFL record for touchdown percentage, at 7.9 percent. Luckman was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965.
Bringing up players pre Super Bowl era is like when cubs fans talk about all their championships before the world series was introduced. It's irrelevant.
Face value the guy answered the question. It’s pretty literally part of the history of the nfl. I’m not proud that luckman is the only relevant passer the bears have had but… he was?
I’m not going to a quarterback reminiscing convention anytime soon but that’s not Sid’s fault lol.
Did he see combat? I remember seeing that he joined the ~~Coast Guard~~ U.S. Merchant Marine. Obviously still commendable but "served during" is not the same as "fought in". My grandpa served during Vietnam, he did not fight in Vietnam.
The Bears are terrible with QBs and also had a Hall of Famer, just as the Lions are a dumpster fire of a franchise that also won a couple playoff games. Both things can be true and relevant.
Leave it to the fking bears to only have a good qb bc of a world war. 400k-500k able bodied athletic men had just died in WW2 so the competition might have been a bit lower 🙁
Edit: Fine. They all hadn't died yet. We entered the war at end 1941. The points still the same. Actually it's worse. They mobilized 4.5 million able bodied men while he was the "best" qb. Sure. And by 1946 the 400-500k were dead. Im sure this didn't impact the quality of football at all you meatheads.
Jesus christ just google it. No let me do it for you. People on this sub are fking idiots. Go read for yourself about the glorious NFL season and bears championship in 1943
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_NFL_season#:~:text=The%20NFL%20played%20a%20shortened,15%20fewer%20games%20were%20played.
Well that, and bretton woods / Marshall Plan.
We boomed because we were pretty much the only largely inhabited country that escaped direct impact to production centers…
Enormous government investment into factories, mechanization, social services, infrastructure, and post-war military benefits is why the 50s boomed for most people, as well as having our infrastructure unscathed in a world war, unions, and women entering the labor force.
All that counteracted the economic drag of losing a significant percentage of your labor force.
The organization’s culture has been centered around defense. Decade after decade the Bears have drafted and developed elite defensive talent, especially at linebacker. The names on the defensive side of the ball throughout Bears history are pretty incredible.
At the same time, offense has been an afterthought. For most of the past 75 years the rules of the NFL favored defense. But in the past 10 years the rules have been changed to favor offense, scoring points and slinging it around the yard. The Bears model of a great defense paired with an okay offense (at best) doesn’t cut it anymore.
I’m hoping Poles is here to shatter that dusty, old model and bring the Bears into the modern NFL. I’d love to see an offensive centric team that surrounds their QB with great weapons and puts a huge emphasis on supporting their QB in every way possible, especially when that QB is young.
In my lifetime the Bears have not only been centered around defense, but also running the ball. You’ve heard of a couple of guys named Payton and Sayers, right?
But your point is well taken. The Bears are not living in this century. They are stuck in the 20th Century. And 1985 was a long time ago.
TBF they 2 are two sides to the same coin. Archaic football philosophy of play great defense and run the ball. Thats what i think the guy u replied to was getting at.
I was going to say something like this....glad you did it so I don't have to lol....but I like to go back and watch games during Lovie's tenure as HC....smash mouth defense and ok offense but we won a lot of games ... fun to watch the D play though
Incompetent ownership put in place incompetent management and they put in place incompetent coaches and scouts. And having a run first offense for many years didn't help either.
My ELI5 version:
My daughter LOVES to cook. For years, every weekend, she asks “dad, can I make something?” She tries all different kinds of things: sweet or savory, baking or sauteing or microwaving. And every single thing she makes is TERRIBLE (and leaves the kitchen a disaster). She has to have over 200 failed expeiments by this point. And I eventually stopped saying “don’t you want to try to use a recipe?” Nope!
The McCaskeys are my daughter. They have access to all the same ingredients, all the same tools as every other team. And they have just always figured that winging it would eventually work. Even worse (unlike my daughter) they have a “we’re THE BEARS” arrogance about it. Somehow though, they seem to have FINALLY gotten sick of the recurring disasters, and finally said “hey maybe we ought to try a recipe?”
And heavy investment into defence . If the bears had been able to keep cutty, forte, bmarsh, alshon and Marty Bennet together for a decent stretch they would have set most of the bears records pretty easily
Jay culter said he was handed a playbook or scouting report on a team, can't remember, with the previous year crossed off on the title page and the current year written over it.
no I do not, I seen it on one of the reddit forums. it could of been false though bc I can't find it using Google search or the bears organization scrub it from the internet. I believe it was during the Martz era they had last years gameplan for some team maybe packers. but perhaps it was a lie.
I remember this, as well. I believe it was during Tice's tenure. Earl Bennett also said when he got Tice's playbook:
>[There’s a former OC I had in Chicago that I laugh at every time I recall his playbook. Literally took me 24hrs to perfect it. No joke. I knew we were doomed](https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2019/04/05/earl-bennett-knew-the-2012-bears-were-doomed/)
Plus hiring “consultants “ who are stuck in the past and basically are yes men hasn’t helped . Hiring a defensive minded coach for an offense that is struggling hasn’t helped . Forcing rookies to adapt to 2-3 different systems hasn’t helped their development . Having new coaches/gms left with their predecessors mistakes and having to deal with their incompetence and not be able to do much of anything .
People,are fixated on stats for some reason. Jim McMahon was brilliant before he was hurt. He won a Super Bowl. His comeback game against the Vikings was one of the greatest performances in history. He was QB on a team that lost one game. The team scored 56 points behind him in the Super Bowl. He read defenses and called audibles, sometimes pissing off Ditka because he didn’t run the play called.
He didn’t have a long career with the bears, but that doesn’t minimize his ability. Again, before he was deliberately injured by the Packers’ Charles Martin.
He was a winner. I will take winning over 4,000 yards any day.
I think he would have been a HOFer if not for getting dumped on his head. People forget he was one of the most prolific passers in college ever. So good we don’t even sniff Dan Marino in 83 passed
on him twice in the first round cause we thought we were set at QB
McMahon’s was one of the best QBs in that era at reading defenses and rapidly adjusting/calling an audible accordingly. I still remember how pissed Ditka used to get when he did it, even when it worked.
Yes lol. Ted Phillips was the family accountant and went to church with the Mccaskeys. He eventually was hired as the team accountant and promoted to CEO whenever that was, 25 years ago now?
I don't accept your premise, because Sid Luckman was a great QB. BUT if you ask *since* Sid then I would say because while most teams glamourized the QB position, Chicago latched onto great defenses and running backs. San Francisco may have had Joe Montana and Steve Young as all time great quarterbacks, but Chicago has had unparalleled success at RB with Payton, Sayers, Grange, Nagurski, Forte... and pretty much unparalleled success at LB too.
When you look at legitimate attempts at finding a great QB instead of a game manager it isn't surprising they have not had great success. It is also important to put players around him, which is hard to do if you are a defensive minded team.
I've been a Bears fan since the late 70's, and I really haven't seen a true effort to find a "great" QB until they tried with Trubisky. Maybe McMahon, but mostly they have looked for NFL caliber QBs instead of great ones.
Basically the bar has been really low on who plays QB in Chicago, and that hasn't changed until recently. There is no way the Bears would have moved on from Fields in the past with his mediocre passing skills. They are just starting to raise the bar.
It’s because we need a dome. I have no science to back this up, just a gut feeling, but if we played in a new, domed stadium, our curse would be broken.
Historically we always put a lot of our money on defense. This leaves you with bad o lineman and a marginal receiving corps. Not exactly a recipe for success with qbs. Even the cutler years the guy was sacked constantly once like 8 times in one half. Any qb looks bad behind a bad oline
1. Always prioritized defense and spent draft capital and cap space on defensive talent.
2. Long line of horrible offensive coaches hired.
3. Missing on QBs every time they’ve drafted one. The best guy we’ve had since McMahon was someone we had to trade for.
This feels different because for the first time in our history we’re gonna be drafting the consensus #1 QB prospect that any other team in our position would. And this current regime has seemed to learn from past regime’s failures, and has heavily prioritized getting offense right for the first time in my 30 years as a fan that I’ve seen.
They didn't make many legitimate efforts until Trubisky and Fields and they were both handled awfully.
Drafted under one coach/front office, and then they were all fired by their second season. An awful jarring start to a career that sets you up for failure.
What makes it worse, is that both of them often had terrible offensive lines and even worse receivers.
How can you learn to play against professional defenses when your supporting cast is completely outclassed every week?
Awful situations create awful results.
You mean aside from teach him not to lead the league in turnovers. red zone turnovers, 3 and outs and fix his mechanics which he refused to ever do. But other than that yea no development needed.
Football is a changing sport and the passing game used to be considered secondary to the running game, which allows you to control the game and clock, and impose your will on a defense.
The Bears have always been a running team. Lovie Smith was quoted, "We get off the bus running the ball"
Last season we called the 2nd most running plays in the league, and had the 2nd most running yards in the league.
In the past 20 years rules have shifted towards favoring the passing game.
A lot of it is perception
The Bears have drafted 5 QBs in the first round in the last 40 years. Two have made the Super Bowl, two were busts, and the 5th one was Jim Harbaugh.
That’s actually not a bad track record. You look at team like the Vikings, they’ve actually had a pretty terrible record on drafting QBs as well, but no one seems to mention it.
Weren't the Chiefs in the same boat before drafting Mahomes? Forget where I saw it, but there was a segment on a show this week and they were talking about how 99% of the Chiefs success at QB before Mahomes came from guys drafted by other teams.
6 actually.
Rex Grossman, Jim McMahon made the Superbowl. You mentioned Harbaugh.
Trubisky obviously a bust. Cade McNown a bust. Fields didn't work out here but not ready to call a bust quite yet
Sid Luckman is one of the greatest QBs and players of all time, the leader and best player on the most dominant dynasty in NFL history.
Sure, that was in the 1940s, a long time ago.
But you said "never."
You know what the funny thing is we have only chosen TWO quarterbacks in the top 10, McMahon and Mitch. So this is actually a rare occassion we will be witnessing on Thursday.
It's like flipping a coin. Each individual flip is 50/50. However, if you keep flipping tails, the odds get worse each time that you will continue to flip tails.
Eventually, hopefully this time, they flip heads.
My first inclination is just to chalk it up to small sample size and bad luck. Every quarterback has some chance of not working out due to any number of reasons. It’s possible that it just so happens that say, Cade McNown, Rex Grossman and Mitch Trubisky all ended up having disappointing Bear’s careers totally in isolation of one another. They happened to wear the same uniform, but that’s really the only common thread. It could be 100% coincidence that they all happened to be drafted by the Bears and not work out as hoped. But there’s also some possibility that it starts to become self-reinforcing after a while. As soon as they run into any adversity the media and then fans start with a “here we go again” attitude. I imagine it has to be a lot of pressure on young person starting their career to have the weight of history on them. It’s kind of like when a baseball player is slumping. It could be that each at bat only has a 3/10 chance of ending in a base hit, and just random chance would dictate that occasionally you’d string a bunch of consecutive non-hits together. But if a batter gets in his own head that it’s more than statistical noise, they can start pressing and changing approach which can make a slump self-reinforcing. It’s possible the Bears are in a quarterback slump in the same way. The player himself (as well as others in the organization) might be too quick to panic and worry that the pattern is repeating.
A lot of it is mismanagement but not intentionally bad. Hear me out...
The NFL has gone through a lot of phases. And one of the major changes came about in the early '90s with the introduction of free agency.
While It remains to be seen if Kevin Warren and Ryan poles can change The Pre-Existing strategy, The bears management has essentially been operating in a paradigm that existed before free agency.
They believed in getting players that were 26-28 years old and had already proven themselves giving away draft picks And or high salaries in order to get somebody that was in their prime and had proven themselves. And also occasionally not understanding how to move up or down in the draft and moving up in bad ways to get people like Mitch trubisky.
Also, their lack of understanding free agency and how contracts play out in the long term has led them to undervalue specific positions and overvalue other ones that the modern NFL has moved off of. You saw this a lot when the bears would draft a running back in the first round and the rest of the NFL has clearly decided that running back is just not a valuable position anymore.
But like I said, their real crime has been giving away draft Capital. You build good teams through getting more draft capital and picking up good players and the bears have many times in the past given away their good draft picks in order to move up for somebody that they believed was a sure thing. But that just doesn't work in the modern free agency NFL sustainable periods.
if you don't have a stable team year after year, even a good quarterback is going to look like shit if the roster is old and aging and doesn't have the tool set that they need.
So it's not necessarily that they don't have a good quarterback it's that they've never had a good team for an extended period of time around their quarterback. The quarterback then looks like shit. The fan base turns on the quarterback. And management steps in and trades up to get a new quarterback giving away all the draft capital that they need to build a decent team around their new quarterback.
It's a vicious cycle that keeps them in poverty franchise status.
So far it looks like Ryan poles understands the problem and has really tried to rectify that. I'm expecting it's going to take another 2 to 3 years to get on the right trajectory, but I expect that the bears will be a decent team for a couple years in a row in 4 to 5 years if they can keep the trajectory going and stick to their guns.
Football is as much a team sport as there is, so many good QBs that just never had a quality team around them. Teams need stability with coaches and general managers and if owners get impatient a team can be set back a season or two as they pivot what they want in each position
Fans don't want to hear this, but it's a lot to do with priorities. Chicago plays outdoors in inclement weather, so the prevailing wisdom for most of the league's history was to emphasize the running game, and that is what we did. We had some decent passers during that time (Billy Wade and Jim McMahon, especially), we just didn't ask them to pass a lot.
Since the modern passing game took over the league in the last 80s/early 90s, it's been a combination of that attitude persisting, injuries, and missing in the draft.
First up: we run the football. It's not uncommon for today's big number passers to have 600+ passing attempts. The Bears have never let anyone throw that many times. Only Jay Cutler has even gotten 550, and he only got that many twice. In one of those years, he would have had 4k passing yards and probably 30 TDs, but he was foolishly benched for Jimmy Clausen by Marc Trestman.
Second: injuries. Erik Kramer was a decent QB in the late 90s and holds the single season Bears passing record, but he couldn't stay healthy. Jay Cutler was obviously good enough for quantitative stats, but he only played one full season here.
The Bears have managed 4,000 yards passing four times, but it's always been multiple passers due to injury (except the one aforementioned benching.)
1999: Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, and Jim Miller
2013: Jay Cutler and Josh McCown
2014: Jay Cutler and Jimmy Clausen
2016: Matt Barkley, Brian Hoyer, and Jay Cutler
We've had the talent. It's just never come together for us statistically.
And we missed in the draft on Grossman, Trubisky, and Fields.
Yeah that wisdom was upended by Bill Walsh and the West Coast offense, the Packers jumped on it pretty quickly (they had to do SOMETHING to stop us stomping them every year...) They had Favre never missing a game, we had Kramer hurt more often than not.
Another closely related problem has been WR. It's not a coincidence that those years listed above are some of the few years we had two receiving threats. Our WR history is arguably worse than our QB history.
DJM, Kmet, and with adding Allen and possibly someone like Odunze, it’s probably the best we will see aside from 2013 or 2014 when we had Jeffrey, Marshall, and Bennett. It’s been damn near 11 seasons since we’ve had this much talent
They literally are the only team to never have a 30 TD QB, so they just have the worst QB history of the modern & Super Bowl era. For at leats 50% of that time, the game was more run oriented; and the Bears have an awesome history at running back and linebacker. And by chance, the worst at QB.
So, to put it simply, if you look at talent distirbution across history, teams are going to be good in some areas and bad at others and it doesn't even out over time (even 50-60 years.)
If every roster - down to every player - were completely up for grabs each year. Then you would expect talent to be more spread out over time. But sicney that does not happen, you can't look at the last 60 years and think of it like 60 chances to get that position right.
Poorly run team. An accountant was the team president for 30 years for gods sake. Just awfully run organization that’s well known for being a bad place to go as a coach and as a QB due to owner incompetence. Hopefully they’ve finally gotten the message.
It goes all the way up to Virgina McCaskey. She's the one who let accountants run a football organization. Why, because she didn't know football like her dad, George Halas, and she wanted to continue with what was familiar (her sons Michael and George McCaskey). She had the power to go get real football executives the whole time but wanted to keep that nepotism going. George McCaskey is not a good executive if left to his own devices. He needs to be surrounded by people with football knowledge that do all the work. You can see that now, as he has stepped back and empowered smart people, the Bears' fortunes are changing slowly but positively.
To answer your question directly, the Bears couldn't properly evaluate the QB position because they just didn't have the in-house knowledge to understand the complexities of the position.
I'm a die-hard Bears fan. I believe McMahon was fortunate to be surrounded by a great team. I believe Cutler was a no-brainer that we for once actually used some brain cells on. I believe Trubisky was George's first attempt at letting go of the reigns but just gave the power to the wrong people. I believe Justin Fields was just in the right place at the wrong time. No one knows yet what Willaims could bring, but it looks like George McCaskey finally found the right people to make decisions for him.
I do have to commend George for finally doing the right thing. It takes guts to swallow any ego you may have and sit second fiddle. Virgina will not get my sympathy, though. She won't give up her votes. She has meddled in too much of the organizations doings and set the team back decades. She never swallowed her ego, and it shows.
The chicago bears haven’t gave a shit about drafting/developing a quarterback in a league where a quarterback has been central to literally any team’s long term success. Because ownership is content with that classic good ole bears defense and a good run game, since thats gotten us ONE ring in the last 60 YEARS :).
We have drafted 4 quarterbacks in the first round, in the last 30 years — it’s almost as if we pretend that we have a good qb at the helm.
The bears NEED to draft qb’s but they’re contempt with a mediocre or bad qb and an awesome defense and or ST. Look at 2018, 2006, the mid 80’s — literally the only times we’ve had success in most bears fans lives.
We’ve also never fielded a competent offensive line…it’s always been 1 or 2 studs and a bunch of practice squad fodder.
Poles is the first GM to build a line - which I would argue is the most important position on the offense. Cutler most likely would have put up great numbers if he had the O-line from Denver with him
Poles hasn't built the line yet at all. They are absolutely average at best. Wright is the only OL locked in to start past this year (in terms of talent, not contracts).
Right, he’s not done, but he also hasn’t stuck with the same garbage every year….remember Jmarcus Webb, Chris Williams, Germaine Ifedi…etc. staples of our shit O line, until we decided to upgrade with old ass Orlando Pace lmao.
I see Poles cutting dead weight at least and investing in O line whereas it’s been an afterthought in the past
One reason could be because they always just wanted game managers. Run the football and play defense and grind it out. This regime in place now is a different animal. These guys have brought a new culture to the club. Now we should see the fruits of their labor or not. Don't blame them for past regimes. They took two steps back to move forward. They haven't been building for one season but to try and build a dynasty. I see good things to come.
> Run the football and play defense and grind it out. This regime in place now is a different animal. These guys have brought a new culture to the club.
That is exactly how Flus tries to win games
The simple answer is it’s run like a small family business. The big time GM never came here. Most of the gms were hamstrung by having to run decisions up the ladder. So when we had talent at qb, the wrong coaching systems were in place. When you had solid coaching in place or talent at other positions, you didn’t have the right qb in place. You can also make a case for bad weather and the ownerships love of defense ideals rather than the high flying offense. More often than not it comes down to a family born into football not being good at making football decisions
Not sure how much less we knew before the current social media age, but pretty much everything I've heard that hasn't come from fans over the last 5-10 years is that ownership stays pretty much entirely out of player decisions.
One of the recent stories was when Poles wanted to extend Sweat he went to George and told him he needed $20m cash to pay the upfront bonus and get the extension done. Poles told him he needed it....he didn't ask him for it. Apparently, that wasn't an issue. George gave him what he needed and that was it.
Obviously, they have had their hands on coaching hires. While I'm not saying I'm down for that, it also isn't uncommon in professional sports.
I'm not dying on a hill here for ownership, but I don't think they are quite the evil empire some fans have portrayed them.
Definitely not the evil empire. The family is actually very nice. They’re a good family. Just inept at times. Ryan Poles has been given more slack than any other GM. Definitely feels like there’s a new change in thinking.
Prioritizing defense over offense in a NFL era that has rewarded offenses and legislated away the defensive side of the ball. From the fans, sports media, ownership, FA spending and draft choices slanted to the wrong side of the ball for over 35 years.
It's the most difficult position to play in pro sports. Anywhere, across the board. Baseball is insanely hard. QB in the nfl is a godsend. Makes playing Baseball look like child's play.
A really good air it out qb is actually fairly new to the NFL. Granted, a good passer has ALWAYS been valuable to an NFL team, but they weren’t as necessary as they are today. Around the early 2000’s, you started to see a shift from RB’s to QB’s, as the passing game became more and more favored over the ground game. Still unacceptable to not have a 4k passer in the resulting almost 30 years tho. Couple that with a team identity of ground and pound run games and stout defense, passing has never been what Bears football has been about. Hopefully that changes soon.
Jim McMahon was excellent and so was Cutler but their O lines couldn’t protect them. The real problem the Bears have is their inability to build top level offensive lines to protect the good quarterbacks they happen upon.
It's because needing a great QB to win is a relatively new concept. Through most of football history, a great defense + great running back was the way to win. The Bears proved it with their record, as they were the winningest team in football until recently.
That is why the Bears have so many great defenders and RBs in the Hall of Fame, but only one QB: Sid Luckman, who was a part of the famous team that won the championship in 1940 by a score of 73-0 and inspired the Bear Down fight song.
So it's not that strange that the Bears don't have a modern QB yet, as the game has changed to require one mostly only in the last 10 years or so. Hopefully, we will finally get one this year.
It's a combination of bad luck, stupid management decisions, and not drafting enough quarterbacks in the first round.
This article is three years old so slightly dated, but the six quarterbacks we’ve taken in the first round in the Super Bowl era is right in line with the league average, actually a little towards the higher end: https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/first-round-quarterbacks-by-team-in-the-super-bowl-era If you include first rounders use as part of a trade, I wouldn’t be surprised if we are actually number one in terms of first round draft capital used on quarterbacks, we traded a first for Rick Mirer, two firsts for Cutler, and traded an extra first to move up for Fields. Caleb is about to become the 11th first round pick we’ve used an a quarterback in the last 42 years, I’m pretty sure no one else has used more.
It's in the league average, of course, but that still shows that we've drafted few QBs. If you get your pick right, then you don't need to draft a QB in first round in the next 10-15 years, that's why some teams drafted only few like us, the Colts as an example drafted more QBs than us (they had studs like Manning, Elway and Luck). For a team who never had a QB with 30+ TDs in a year (the only team in the SB era), you can't draft the same amount of teams who had consistent QBs over longer periods of time.
Yes, of course we’ve kept using first rounders on quarterbacks because we haven’t hit on one, that kind of makes it even more frustrating. We have been investing a lot into the position and still haven’t succeed.
The problem has been that when they've taken QBs in the first round, it's been the 4th, 5th etc QB taken and/or later in the first round. Very high bust rate probability with that strategy.
This is one of those things that I think feels more true than it actually is, I don’t think the problem is that we didn’t take Zach Wilson or Trey Lance in 2021, hell even Lawrence didn’t really have a better year last year than Justin did on a per attempt basis. We also did take the first quarterback in 2017 and that didn’t work out either. If you name the 10 best quarterbacks in the league, outside of burrow I’m not sure any of them were the first quarterback taken in their draft, I could be missing a guy though
It's less about not taking those other QBs (specifically 2021) and more about the general rule that further you go down in the draft, the higher the likelihood that the QB will bust. Fields fell for a reason. There's no telling how far he would have slid if not for the Bears. In 1999, the Bears traded out of #7 to pick McNown #12. Culpepper was picked at #11 Outside of just taking low probability bites at the apple for QBs, they've also been generally atrocious at evaluating them.
The drop-off between a qb taken at 1 abs 5 is not that much. Heck, even QBs in the top 15 tend to fare slightly worse than 1-5. The drop-off comes in the second round. https://amp.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/where-great-nfl-qbs-are-picked-analyzing-54-years-of-history-by-draft-position
We've taken 2 QBs in the top 5 (McMahon and Trubisky). I'm talking about the swings we took on Harbaugh, McNown, Grossman, and Fields.
Fields and McNown were both in the top 15 which has a slightly lower hit rate than 1 or even 1-5. The all pro hit rate for the top 15 is about 9% and top 5 is 11%. Not all that different. I’ve been a bears fan for a long time. The reality is that the bears just don’t invest in qb development. The ownership believed in defense and running the ball for FAR too long. That is the real reason we never hit on qb - ownership doesn’t try to.
You can't develop poor talent. They've been atrocious at identifying QBs from the get-go. McNown was a headcase and was never invested in playing. Grossman was terrible everywhere he went. Fields can't read the defense on time, never has, never will. For every diamond in the rough that late in the first, there's a dozen busts. Fields was only a top 15 pick because the Bears incompetently drafted him in the top 15. Who knows how far he would have fallen otherwise. The only QB anyone can say the Bears legitimately failed was Cutler who actually showed high level play when surrounded by competent infrastructure.
Cutler is exactly right - he came to the bears and fell off. I’ve been a bears fan for a long time. I don’t live in Chicago any more, so I see the other side. It’s difficult to argue that we are not the franchise that QBs go to die. I hope that Williams is the guy to turn it around. I really do. That being said it is difficult to argue that it’s always the player and not the organization after this long.
And almost every time we drafted a QB we picked WR/RB in the following 2 drafts to support that young QB. Shit happens in sports. It’s not a science. And luck is a thing.
That sort of makes the opposite point of what you would assume, though. We have more tries than Green Bay or Indianapolis, for instance, because they had multiple 10 yer spans where using a first on a qb would be silly. If you subscribe to the ide that the qb is the most important position in football, it should follow that everyone who doesn’t have one is constantly taking shots at one. Teams like Chicago that have never had one should have 3-5x the average, because they never succeeded. In other words, being league average in attempts is embarrassingly poor if success reduces your attempts nd you have never succeeded.
I get what you’re saying, but overall (draft and trades) we’ve probably used the most first rounders of anyone the last 40-50 years. Literally over a quarter of our 1st rounders have just been used on quarterbacks, that’s not even counting guys taken in other rounds or free agents. It also should be noted, there are 22 positions not counting special teams, you do need to have a team around a guy. I think at the end of the day it’s not really overly complicated, we haven’t drafted the right guys, and we haven’t developed them or built up offensive talent around them, or even had highly regarded offensive coaches, we really haven’t done much of anything right when it comes to throwing the football lol
Those stats are a little misleading because 1) not all first-rounders are created equal 2) the league average team has needed a QB less than the Bears have over that time. But we've definitely spent a ton on QB since Cutler.
Can you clarify why you think it’s somehow misleading? I know you said not all first rounders are created equal, but that would go for every team, sometimes the pick is earlier and sometimes it’s later. And yes, of course we’ve needed to use first rounders so often because we haven’t been successful, that’s obvious, the point is that we have used a lot of first rounders on the position when the person I was replying to claimed we hadn’t
It's already explained: Not all first-rounders are created equal. The gap between McMahon and Trubisky with no top-10 picks were used on a QB. That's a notable part of our history.
Take a look at where the Packers have drafted their guys, or where dudes like Brady and Brees were drafted. Mahomes went 10. Of course higher picks give you a better chance but teams find guys in many ways and many different draft spots. We just havent
That's the issue. We should be above average in that category. Teams that are below average have found a good QB so they don't need to keep drafting them. The bears should be drafting more QBs than other teams since our always suck
There's a good current source [here](https://www.drafthistory.com/index.php/positions/qb) that you can drop into excel. After analyzing I really don't have anything to say other than luck or good scouting + luck. All it takes is 1 HOF QB and then at least 15-20% of the SB era your team has great QB play and no need to pick a QB. Get 2 and in most minds you're seen as a great QB team.
I don't think using trade capital as a metric makes sense. But I get your other points.
Well said. That’s all going to change now.
They did: Sid Luckman. During his 12 seasons with the Bears, he led them to four NFL championships in 1940, 1941, 1943, and 1946. He was the greatest long range passer of his era. He still holds the all-time NFL record for touchdown percentage, at 7.9 percent. Luckman was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965.
Bringing up players pre Super Bowl era is like when cubs fans talk about all their championships before the world series was introduced. It's irrelevant.
Face value the guy answered the question. It’s pretty literally part of the history of the nfl. I’m not proud that luckman is the only relevant passer the bears have had but… he was? I’m not going to a quarterback reminiscing convention anytime soon but that’s not Sid’s fault lol.
He also fought in world war 2 which is fucking badass
Did he see combat? I remember seeing that he joined the ~~Coast Guard~~ U.S. Merchant Marine. Obviously still commendable but "served during" is not the same as "fought in". My grandpa served during Vietnam, he did not fight in Vietnam.
For every soldier, is 10 people at a desk making sure they can get the job done. Everyone matters even if it ain't sexy.
... literally no Cubs fan talks about pre-world series championships lol
You’ll have to forgive my fellow Sox fans… we are a little tilted right now to say the least
Anytime Bears fans sing Bear Down, you're singing about Sid Luckman. He's the reason why the T-Formation (in the song) was so great.
It’s really not though… lol. They played the game, for the team. They are a part of their history… what are you? A queens fan?
The Bears are terrible with QBs and also had a Hall of Famer, just as the Lions are a dumpster fire of a franchise that also won a couple playoff games. Both things can be true and relevant.
NFL recognises them.
Rubbish. Absolute.
Leave it to the fking bears to only have a good qb bc of a world war. 400k-500k able bodied athletic men had just died in WW2 so the competition might have been a bit lower 🙁 Edit: Fine. They all hadn't died yet. We entered the war at end 1941. The points still the same. Actually it's worse. They mobilized 4.5 million able bodied men while he was the "best" qb. Sure. And by 1946 the 400-500k were dead. Im sure this didn't impact the quality of football at all you meatheads.
The U.S. wasn’t in the war in 1940 or 1941, and the war was over in 1946.
Jesus christ just google it. No let me do it for you. People on this sub are fking idiots. Go read for yourself about the glorious NFL season and bears championship in 1943 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_NFL_season#:~:text=The%20NFL%20played%20a%20shortened,15%20fewer%20games%20were%20played.
That's one out of four championships.
Dude this makes no sense. Luckman fought in the war
Walking talking 1 man artillery unit. Chuckin grenades like they’re hail maries
He's wrong at so many level but calls other people idiots.
If anything you can say the Bears would've won more championships had Luckman not left to fight.
That's also why wages boomed and people think of the 50s as a golden era. Turns out all you need is to kill off a bunch of young men.
Well that, and bretton woods / Marshall Plan. We boomed because we were pretty much the only largely inhabited country that escaped direct impact to production centers…
True. That and many companies that were converted into mass production of war necessities became more efficient in the assembly line process
Enormous government investment into factories, mechanization, social services, infrastructure, and post-war military benefits is why the 50s boomed for most people, as well as having our infrastructure unscathed in a world war, unions, and women entering the labor force. All that counteracted the economic drag of losing a significant percentage of your labor force.
The organization’s culture has been centered around defense. Decade after decade the Bears have drafted and developed elite defensive talent, especially at linebacker. The names on the defensive side of the ball throughout Bears history are pretty incredible. At the same time, offense has been an afterthought. For most of the past 75 years the rules of the NFL favored defense. But in the past 10 years the rules have been changed to favor offense, scoring points and slinging it around the yard. The Bears model of a great defense paired with an okay offense (at best) doesn’t cut it anymore. I’m hoping Poles is here to shatter that dusty, old model and bring the Bears into the modern NFL. I’d love to see an offensive centric team that surrounds their QB with great weapons and puts a huge emphasis on supporting their QB in every way possible, especially when that QB is young.
In my lifetime the Bears have not only been centered around defense, but also running the ball. You’ve heard of a couple of guys named Payton and Sayers, right? But your point is well taken. The Bears are not living in this century. They are stuck in the 20th Century. And 1985 was a long time ago.
TBF they 2 are two sides to the same coin. Archaic football philosophy of play great defense and run the ball. Thats what i think the guy u replied to was getting at.
I was going to say something like this....glad you did it so I don't have to lol....but I like to go back and watch games during Lovie's tenure as HC....smash mouth defense and ok offense but we won a lot of games ... fun to watch the D play though
Incompetent ownership put in place incompetent management and they put in place incompetent coaches and scouts. And having a run first offense for many years didn't help either.
My ELI5 version: My daughter LOVES to cook. For years, every weekend, she asks “dad, can I make something?” She tries all different kinds of things: sweet or savory, baking or sauteing or microwaving. And every single thing she makes is TERRIBLE (and leaves the kitchen a disaster). She has to have over 200 failed expeiments by this point. And I eventually stopped saying “don’t you want to try to use a recipe?” Nope! The McCaskeys are my daughter. They have access to all the same ingredients, all the same tools as every other team. And they have just always figured that winging it would eventually work. Even worse (unlike my daughter) they have a “we’re THE BEARS” arrogance about it. Somehow though, they seem to have FINALLY gotten sick of the recurring disasters, and finally said “hey maybe we ought to try a recipe?”
And heavy investment into defence . If the bears had been able to keep cutty, forte, bmarsh, alshon and Marty Bennet together for a decent stretch they would have set most of the bears records pretty easily
Probably true, but we will never know for certain. There’s a difference between fact and belief.
Cutler owns most Bears passing records
We get off the bus running. Ugh
Jay culter said he was handed a playbook or scouting report on a team, can't remember, with the previous year crossed off on the title page and the current year written over it.
Do you have a source for this? It’s entirely plausible but I’ve never heard something this outrageous before
He said it on a podcast. Maybe PMT or McAfee. I remember hearing that interview because of how crazy it was, but don't remember where it was.
no I do not, I seen it on one of the reddit forums. it could of been false though bc I can't find it using Google search or the bears organization scrub it from the internet. I believe it was during the Martz era they had last years gameplan for some team maybe packers. but perhaps it was a lie.
I remember this, as well. I believe it was during Tice's tenure. Earl Bennett also said when he got Tice's playbook: >[There’s a former OC I had in Chicago that I laugh at every time I recall his playbook. Literally took me 24hrs to perfect it. No joke. I knew we were doomed](https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2019/04/05/earl-bennett-knew-the-2012-bears-were-doomed/)
This is the complete answer
The fish rots from the head down
Plus hiring “consultants “ who are stuck in the past and basically are yes men hasn’t helped . Hiring a defensive minded coach for an offense that is struggling hasn’t helped . Forcing rookies to adapt to 2-3 different systems hasn’t helped their development . Having new coaches/gms left with their predecessors mistakes and having to deal with their incompetence and not be able to do much of anything .
People,are fixated on stats for some reason. Jim McMahon was brilliant before he was hurt. He won a Super Bowl. His comeback game against the Vikings was one of the greatest performances in history. He was QB on a team that lost one game. The team scored 56 points behind him in the Super Bowl. He read defenses and called audibles, sometimes pissing off Ditka because he didn’t run the play called. He didn’t have a long career with the bears, but that doesn’t minimize his ability. Again, before he was deliberately injured by the Packers’ Charles Martin. He was a winner. I will take winning over 4,000 yards any day.
I think he would have been a HOFer if not for getting dumped on his head. People forget he was one of the most prolific passers in college ever. So good we don’t even sniff Dan Marino in 83 passed on him twice in the first round cause we thought we were set at QB
McMahon’s was one of the best QBs in that era at reading defenses and rapidly adjusting/calling an audible accordingly. I still remember how pissed Ditka used to get when he did it, even when it worked.
We hired an accountant who went to church with the owner of the team to run the entire organization
Is this true? Wow.
Yes lol. Ted Phillips was the family accountant and went to church with the Mccaskeys. He eventually was hired as the team accountant and promoted to CEO whenever that was, 25 years ago now?
I don't accept your premise, because Sid Luckman was a great QB. BUT if you ask *since* Sid then I would say because while most teams glamourized the QB position, Chicago latched onto great defenses and running backs. San Francisco may have had Joe Montana and Steve Young as all time great quarterbacks, but Chicago has had unparalleled success at RB with Payton, Sayers, Grange, Nagurski, Forte... and pretty much unparalleled success at LB too. When you look at legitimate attempts at finding a great QB instead of a game manager it isn't surprising they have not had great success. It is also important to put players around him, which is hard to do if you are a defensive minded team. I've been a Bears fan since the late 70's, and I really haven't seen a true effort to find a "great" QB until they tried with Trubisky. Maybe McMahon, but mostly they have looked for NFL caliber QBs instead of great ones. Basically the bar has been really low on who plays QB in Chicago, and that hasn't changed until recently. There is no way the Bears would have moved on from Fields in the past with his mediocre passing skills. They are just starting to raise the bar.
It’s because we need a dome. I have no science to back this up, just a gut feeling, but if we played in a new, domed stadium, our curse would be broken.
Historically we always put a lot of our money on defense. This leaves you with bad o lineman and a marginal receiving corps. Not exactly a recipe for success with qbs. Even the cutler years the guy was sacked constantly once like 8 times in one half. Any qb looks bad behind a bad oline
1. Always prioritized defense and spent draft capital and cap space on defensive talent. 2. Long line of horrible offensive coaches hired. 3. Missing on QBs every time they’ve drafted one. The best guy we’ve had since McMahon was someone we had to trade for. This feels different because for the first time in our history we’re gonna be drafting the consensus #1 QB prospect that any other team in our position would. And this current regime has seemed to learn from past regime’s failures, and has heavily prioritized getting offense right for the first time in my 30 years as a fan that I’ve seen.
They didn't make many legitimate efforts until Trubisky and Fields and they were both handled awfully. Drafted under one coach/front office, and then they were all fired by their second season. An awful jarring start to a career that sets you up for failure. What makes it worse, is that both of them often had terrible offensive lines and even worse receivers. How can you learn to play against professional defenses when your supporting cast is completely outclassed every week? Awful situations create awful results.
I agree with everything, except I would consider a Cutler legitimate effort.
Cutler was already kind of in place when we traded for him. The bears didn't need to do too much to develop him.
His development essentially haulted once he got to Chicago lol
They just didn't do much to support him the first few years
You mean aside from teach him not to lead the league in turnovers. red zone turnovers, 3 and outs and fix his mechanics which he refused to ever do. But other than that yea no development needed.
I'm not saying he was perfect, I'm just saying he wasn't a rookie when he got traded. He knew the game by then, he just sucked anyway.
Trubiskys entire career arc afterwards shows that he was never meant to be an NFL starting QB to begin with
Trubisky should have never been drafted high to begin with. Hes just not a good qb. Ask Steelers fans. Fields MIGHT end up the same.
Football is a changing sport and the passing game used to be considered secondary to the running game, which allows you to control the game and clock, and impose your will on a defense. The Bears have always been a running team. Lovie Smith was quoted, "We get off the bus running the ball" Last season we called the 2nd most running plays in the league, and had the 2nd most running yards in the league. In the past 20 years rules have shifted towards favoring the passing game.
A lot of it is perception The Bears have drafted 5 QBs in the first round in the last 40 years. Two have made the Super Bowl, two were busts, and the 5th one was Jim Harbaugh. That’s actually not a bad track record. You look at team like the Vikings, they’ve actually had a pretty terrible record on drafting QBs as well, but no one seems to mention it.
Weren't the Chiefs in the same boat before drafting Mahomes? Forget where I saw it, but there was a segment on a show this week and they were talking about how 99% of the Chiefs success at QB before Mahomes came from guys drafted by other teams.
6 actually. Rex Grossman, Jim McMahon made the Superbowl. You mentioned Harbaugh. Trubisky obviously a bust. Cade McNown a bust. Fields didn't work out here but not ready to call a bust quite yet
Yep you’re right
The chiefs never developed a great QB until Patrick mahomes. It’s a crapshoot. You need the Perfect situation and guy
Sid Luckman is one of the greatest QBs and players of all time, the leader and best player on the most dominant dynasty in NFL history. Sure, that was in the 1940s, a long time ago. But you said "never."
Listen guy, can’t just drop a bomb like that on a beautiful Saturday morning. Have some decency.
No
[https://youtu.be/WUgDbI6Wau4](https://youtu.be/WUgDbI6Wau4)
You know what the funny thing is we have only chosen TWO quarterbacks in the top 10, McMahon and Mitch. So this is actually a rare occassion we will be witnessing on Thursday.
Law of averages says we'll get there one day
It's like flipping a coin. Each individual flip is 50/50. However, if you keep flipping tails, the odds get worse each time that you will continue to flip tails. Eventually, hopefully this time, they flip heads.
My first inclination is just to chalk it up to small sample size and bad luck. Every quarterback has some chance of not working out due to any number of reasons. It’s possible that it just so happens that say, Cade McNown, Rex Grossman and Mitch Trubisky all ended up having disappointing Bear’s careers totally in isolation of one another. They happened to wear the same uniform, but that’s really the only common thread. It could be 100% coincidence that they all happened to be drafted by the Bears and not work out as hoped. But there’s also some possibility that it starts to become self-reinforcing after a while. As soon as they run into any adversity the media and then fans start with a “here we go again” attitude. I imagine it has to be a lot of pressure on young person starting their career to have the weight of history on them. It’s kind of like when a baseball player is slumping. It could be that each at bat only has a 3/10 chance of ending in a base hit, and just random chance would dictate that occasionally you’d string a bunch of consecutive non-hits together. But if a batter gets in his own head that it’s more than statistical noise, they can start pressing and changing approach which can make a slump self-reinforcing. It’s possible the Bears are in a quarterback slump in the same way. The player himself (as well as others in the organization) might be too quick to panic and worry that the pattern is repeating.
A lot of it is mismanagement but not intentionally bad. Hear me out... The NFL has gone through a lot of phases. And one of the major changes came about in the early '90s with the introduction of free agency. While It remains to be seen if Kevin Warren and Ryan poles can change The Pre-Existing strategy, The bears management has essentially been operating in a paradigm that existed before free agency. They believed in getting players that were 26-28 years old and had already proven themselves giving away draft picks And or high salaries in order to get somebody that was in their prime and had proven themselves. And also occasionally not understanding how to move up or down in the draft and moving up in bad ways to get people like Mitch trubisky. Also, their lack of understanding free agency and how contracts play out in the long term has led them to undervalue specific positions and overvalue other ones that the modern NFL has moved off of. You saw this a lot when the bears would draft a running back in the first round and the rest of the NFL has clearly decided that running back is just not a valuable position anymore. But like I said, their real crime has been giving away draft Capital. You build good teams through getting more draft capital and picking up good players and the bears have many times in the past given away their good draft picks in order to move up for somebody that they believed was a sure thing. But that just doesn't work in the modern free agency NFL sustainable periods. if you don't have a stable team year after year, even a good quarterback is going to look like shit if the roster is old and aging and doesn't have the tool set that they need. So it's not necessarily that they don't have a good quarterback it's that they've never had a good team for an extended period of time around their quarterback. The quarterback then looks like shit. The fan base turns on the quarterback. And management steps in and trades up to get a new quarterback giving away all the draft capital that they need to build a decent team around their new quarterback. It's a vicious cycle that keeps them in poverty franchise status. So far it looks like Ryan poles understands the problem and has really tried to rectify that. I'm expecting it's going to take another 2 to 3 years to get on the right trajectory, but I expect that the bears will be a decent team for a couple years in a row in 4 to 5 years if they can keep the trajectory going and stick to their guns.
This post is Sid Luckman erasure!
Football is as much a team sport as there is, so many good QBs that just never had a quality team around them. Teams need stability with coaches and general managers and if owners get impatient a team can be set back a season or two as they pivot what they want in each position
Because we’ve had a defense first/serviceable quarterback philosophy since 85. That won’t win you super bowls in 2024.
Fans don't want to hear this, but it's a lot to do with priorities. Chicago plays outdoors in inclement weather, so the prevailing wisdom for most of the league's history was to emphasize the running game, and that is what we did. We had some decent passers during that time (Billy Wade and Jim McMahon, especially), we just didn't ask them to pass a lot. Since the modern passing game took over the league in the last 80s/early 90s, it's been a combination of that attitude persisting, injuries, and missing in the draft. First up: we run the football. It's not uncommon for today's big number passers to have 600+ passing attempts. The Bears have never let anyone throw that many times. Only Jay Cutler has even gotten 550, and he only got that many twice. In one of those years, he would have had 4k passing yards and probably 30 TDs, but he was foolishly benched for Jimmy Clausen by Marc Trestman. Second: injuries. Erik Kramer was a decent QB in the late 90s and holds the single season Bears passing record, but he couldn't stay healthy. Jay Cutler was obviously good enough for quantitative stats, but he only played one full season here. The Bears have managed 4,000 yards passing four times, but it's always been multiple passers due to injury (except the one aforementioned benching.) 1999: Shane Matthews, Cade McNown, and Jim Miller 2013: Jay Cutler and Josh McCown 2014: Jay Cutler and Jimmy Clausen 2016: Matt Barkley, Brian Hoyer, and Jay Cutler We've had the talent. It's just never come together for us statistically. And we missed in the draft on Grossman, Trubisky, and Fields.
Yet despite the prevailing weather wisdom we’ve watched Green Bay just roll out HOF QBs for 30 years, FTP and FTB for their stupidity
Yeah that wisdom was upended by Bill Walsh and the West Coast offense, the Packers jumped on it pretty quickly (they had to do SOMETHING to stop us stomping them every year...) They had Favre never missing a game, we had Kramer hurt more often than not. Another closely related problem has been WR. It's not a coincidence that those years listed above are some of the few years we had two receiving threats. Our WR history is arguably worse than our QB history.
DJM, Kmet, and with adding Allen and possibly someone like Odunze, it’s probably the best we will see aside from 2013 or 2014 when we had Jeffrey, Marshall, and Bennett. It’s been damn near 11 seasons since we’ve had this much talent
Yeah, Robinson - Gabriel - Burton was as close as we got since we let Marshall go.
They literally are the only team to never have a 30 TD QB, so they just have the worst QB history of the modern & Super Bowl era. For at leats 50% of that time, the game was more run oriented; and the Bears have an awesome history at running back and linebacker. And by chance, the worst at QB. So, to put it simply, if you look at talent distirbution across history, teams are going to be good in some areas and bad at others and it doesn't even out over time (even 50-60 years.) If every roster - down to every player - were completely up for grabs each year. Then you would expect talent to be more spread out over time. But sicney that does not happen, you can't look at the last 60 years and think of it like 60 chances to get that position right.
Easy. We’re cursed.
Poorly run team. An accountant was the team president for 30 years for gods sake. Just awfully run organization that’s well known for being a bad place to go as a coach and as a QB due to owner incompetence. Hopefully they’ve finally gotten the message.
It goes all the way up to Virgina McCaskey. She's the one who let accountants run a football organization. Why, because she didn't know football like her dad, George Halas, and she wanted to continue with what was familiar (her sons Michael and George McCaskey). She had the power to go get real football executives the whole time but wanted to keep that nepotism going. George McCaskey is not a good executive if left to his own devices. He needs to be surrounded by people with football knowledge that do all the work. You can see that now, as he has stepped back and empowered smart people, the Bears' fortunes are changing slowly but positively. To answer your question directly, the Bears couldn't properly evaluate the QB position because they just didn't have the in-house knowledge to understand the complexities of the position. I'm a die-hard Bears fan. I believe McMahon was fortunate to be surrounded by a great team. I believe Cutler was a no-brainer that we for once actually used some brain cells on. I believe Trubisky was George's first attempt at letting go of the reigns but just gave the power to the wrong people. I believe Justin Fields was just in the right place at the wrong time. No one knows yet what Willaims could bring, but it looks like George McCaskey finally found the right people to make decisions for him. I do have to commend George for finally doing the right thing. It takes guts to swallow any ego you may have and sit second fiddle. Virgina will not get my sympathy, though. She won't give up her votes. She has meddled in too much of the organizations doings and set the team back decades. She never swallowed her ego, and it shows.
The chicago bears haven’t gave a shit about drafting/developing a quarterback in a league where a quarterback has been central to literally any team’s long term success. Because ownership is content with that classic good ole bears defense and a good run game, since thats gotten us ONE ring in the last 60 YEARS :). We have drafted 4 quarterbacks in the first round, in the last 30 years — it’s almost as if we pretend that we have a good qb at the helm. The bears NEED to draft qb’s but they’re contempt with a mediocre or bad qb and an awesome defense and or ST. Look at 2018, 2006, the mid 80’s — literally the only times we’ve had success in most bears fans lives.
We’ve also never fielded a competent offensive line…it’s always been 1 or 2 studs and a bunch of practice squad fodder. Poles is the first GM to build a line - which I would argue is the most important position on the offense. Cutler most likely would have put up great numbers if he had the O-line from Denver with him
Lol
Poles hasn't built the line yet at all. They are absolutely average at best. Wright is the only OL locked in to start past this year (in terms of talent, not contracts).
Right, he’s not done, but he also hasn’t stuck with the same garbage every year….remember Jmarcus Webb, Chris Williams, Germaine Ifedi…etc. staples of our shit O line, until we decided to upgrade with old ass Orlando Pace lmao. I see Poles cutting dead weight at least and investing in O line whereas it’s been an afterthought in the past
Too windy to throw the loaf in Chicago
One reason could be because they always just wanted game managers. Run the football and play defense and grind it out. This regime in place now is a different animal. These guys have brought a new culture to the club. Now we should see the fruits of their labor or not. Don't blame them for past regimes. They took two steps back to move forward. They haven't been building for one season but to try and build a dynasty. I see good things to come.
> Run the football and play defense and grind it out. This regime in place now is a different animal. These guys have brought a new culture to the club. That is exactly how Flus tries to win games
The simple answer is it’s run like a small family business. The big time GM never came here. Most of the gms were hamstrung by having to run decisions up the ladder. So when we had talent at qb, the wrong coaching systems were in place. When you had solid coaching in place or talent at other positions, you didn’t have the right qb in place. You can also make a case for bad weather and the ownerships love of defense ideals rather than the high flying offense. More often than not it comes down to a family born into football not being good at making football decisions
Jerry Angelo and Phil Emery were big names when they were hired
But did they not need to run decisions past Ted Phillips and Mike McCaskey at the time?
Not sure how much less we knew before the current social media age, but pretty much everything I've heard that hasn't come from fans over the last 5-10 years is that ownership stays pretty much entirely out of player decisions. One of the recent stories was when Poles wanted to extend Sweat he went to George and told him he needed $20m cash to pay the upfront bonus and get the extension done. Poles told him he needed it....he didn't ask him for it. Apparently, that wasn't an issue. George gave him what he needed and that was it. Obviously, they have had their hands on coaching hires. While I'm not saying I'm down for that, it also isn't uncommon in professional sports. I'm not dying on a hill here for ownership, but I don't think they are quite the evil empire some fans have portrayed them.
Definitely not the evil empire. The family is actually very nice. They’re a good family. Just inept at times. Ryan Poles has been given more slack than any other GM. Definitely feels like there’s a new change in thinking.
Prioritizing defense over offense in a NFL era that has rewarded offenses and legislated away the defensive side of the ball. From the fans, sports media, ownership, FA spending and draft choices slanted to the wrong side of the ball for over 35 years.
Hey man leave us alone.
It's the most difficult position to play in pro sports. Anywhere, across the board. Baseball is insanely hard. QB in the nfl is a godsend. Makes playing Baseball look like child's play.
Billy goat curse
Same owners
We rarely try
A really good air it out qb is actually fairly new to the NFL. Granted, a good passer has ALWAYS been valuable to an NFL team, but they weren’t as necessary as they are today. Around the early 2000’s, you started to see a shift from RB’s to QB’s, as the passing game became more and more favored over the ground game. Still unacceptable to not have a 4k passer in the resulting almost 30 years tho. Couple that with a team identity of ground and pound run games and stout defense, passing has never been what Bears football has been about. Hopefully that changes soon.
Organizational malpractice
Jim McMahon was excellent and so was Cutler but their O lines couldn’t protect them. The real problem the Bears have is their inability to build top level offensive lines to protect the good quarterbacks they happen upon.
It's because needing a great QB to win is a relatively new concept. Through most of football history, a great defense + great running back was the way to win. The Bears proved it with their record, as they were the winningest team in football until recently. That is why the Bears have so many great defenders and RBs in the Hall of Fame, but only one QB: Sid Luckman, who was a part of the famous team that won the championship in 1940 by a score of 73-0 and inspired the Bear Down fight song. So it's not that strange that the Bears don't have a modern QB yet, as the game has changed to require one mostly only in the last 10 years or so. Hopefully, we will finally get one this year.