“Fail for Cardale.” “Get Sacked and Worse for Hackenberg.” “Lose-ah for Bosa.”
Whatever your slogan/mantra, it’s the mantra the Chicago Bears should embrace. Let the NFL Draft tanking begin. Given how bad they have looked thus far, plus the sell off they’ve initiated on defense, it looks like the Monsters of the Midway will soon be on the clock.
That’s perfect as Chicago will once again be Draft Town in April. The fire sale has already started, and you should expect more player jettisoning as the season wears on.
The poor Chicago Bears. The poor poor Chicago Bears.
This is a Bears Town through and through, but right now people aren’t paying as much attention to them as usual.
This town also has tunnel vision for whoever is winning, and right now it’s Cubs Cubs Cubs. Exactly as it was in June for the Blackhawks. When it’s not Cubs talk right now, it’s the latest Derrick Rose injury, Derrick Rose putting his foot in his mouth or Derrick Rose off the court issues.
You then can’t contemplate the Rose issues without juxtaposing them against Patrick Kane. And most Kane discussions lately haven’t been about hockey. Mix it all together and you have this bizarre concoction of “let’s not pay attention to the Bears right now” stew. It’s all extremely odd because that rarely, if ever, happens in Chicago.
Sorry, but trading away Jon Bostic and Jared Allen doesn’t seem even remotely close to being headline news right now. They are two guys who didn’t fit the new scheme, and when you upgraded from Marc Trestman to John Fox you had to implement a new base defense. Bostic and Allen are casualties of this and that’s about as deep as we’ll go on that.
In all fairness, the San Francisco 49ers are probably a much worse team than the Bears, and possess much less talent, but S.F. hasn’t looked as bad thus far. The Bears have had a much harder schedule than the Niners, but becoming the first NFL team to punt on every single possession in a game in 35 years, is still becoming the first NFL team to punt on every single possession in a game in 35 years.
That really says something when you consider how much the NFL has bent and changed the rules to facilitate scoring and passing in recent years. Jimmy Clausen is Jimmy Clausen and there’s nothing that can be done with that. In the past, I said Jimmy Clausen is a real life J.D. McCoy from “Friday Night Lights” flashing forward to the future after the drama series had ended.
Today, I think that was a really mean and nasty thing for me to say about a fictional character.
It’s kind of unfair what happened to the Chicago Bears in 2015. They started without their #2 receiver Kevin White, then their #1 receiver Alshon Jeffrey went down, so you have a #3 as your #1 and your #4 as your number #2. Then QB1 Jay Cutler goes down in week two.
(Update: Cutler told the media on Thursday that he may play Sunday, but nothing is definitive. The Bears treat injury reports as if they were military intelligence at the Pentagon. Which makes them no different from every other NFL team)
So what do the Chicago Bears do with the first overall pick? Well, just spitballing here, but here’s what I have them doing in my latest NFL mock draft.
I understand the desire to mock a new quarterback here to the Bears, and I almost did so, but again, who’s taking on that Jay Cutler contract? Good luck finding a buyer for him and his mega-deal. Cutty will likely be the opening day starter in 2016. Bears have enough needs everywhere that they can go best player available and that’s…..well, take a look.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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