The Chicago Bears Might Be the New Cleveland Browns
By Jason McIntyre
It’s been a rough 10 years since Rex Grossman, Lovie Smith and Brian Urlacher led the Bears to the Super Bowl in 2007. They’ve reached the playoffs just once since – in 2010, which culminated with an NFC title game loss to Green Bay; the memorable “Jay Cutler injury” game – the franchise is careening out of control with no end in sight.
The last five seasons have been particularly disastrous: Lovie Smith went 10-6 and was fired, and they brought in Canadian Football League offensive guy Marc Trestman, who flopped for two seasons. Enter John Fox, who has had no luck with an atrocious roster. He’s unlikely to make it out of year three.
It’s not only the coaching changes – GM, too. Jerry Angelo stockpiled the roster with talent for a decade, but Phil Emery replaced him in 2012. Emery was bounced quicker than the Bulls from the playoffs. His replacement was Ryan Pace, the youngest GM in the league. He came highly-touted from New Orleans, but all he’s done so far is draft a couple good running backs in the mid-late rounds (Jeremy Langford in 2015, Jordan Howard in 2016).
Otherwise, Pace has struggled, whiffing (so far) on Kevin White in the first round in 2015, and then inexplicably trading up for Mitchell Trubisky last week.
This is going on five years of essentially, Cleveland Browns-grade ineptitude.
And I didn’t even bring up Mike Glennon, a signing I actually liked. But why give him $18 million guaranteed, and then trade up for Trubisky, who is a year away from being a year away?
There’s only one team that really scares me when it comes to potential to be the worst team in the league, and getting that #1 pick: The Chicago Bears.