Former Chicago Bears wide receiver Earl Bennett has become quite the storyteller since joining the ranks of Twitter. He unloaded a doozy a couple of weeks ago when he explained how Brandon Marshall grew jealous of Alshon Jeffery’s success in 2013. It seems he has plenty more to tell though.
This time he went back a little further to January of 2011. The Bears were in the NFC championship game against their rival Green Bay Packers. Bennett admitted in his first tweet of a thread that it was a game that would haunt him forever because of how close they got, but also for just how bad things became at quarterback when Jay Cutler went down with a knee injury.
It was then he revealed how poor a decision the team had made naming veteran Todd Collins their backup that year.
Earl Bennett understood Collins was experienced but what did that mean?
The quarterback had been around the league since 1995, making stops in Buffalo, Kansas City and Washington. It was at that last stop where he’d probably caught the Bears’ attention. In relief of an injured Jason Campbell in 2007, Collins threw for over 800 yards and five TDs and no interceptions, winning three games and helping the Redskins make the playoffs.
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Then again a Hall of Fame coach like Joe Gibbs can make life easy for quarterbacks. It’s also worth noting Collins completed just 29 of 50 passes with two costly interceptions in the subsequent playoff loss to Seattle. It was already clear he could not handle the postseason pressure.
This is the point where it gets awesome because apparently Collins’ fidgeting didn’t sit well with Matt Forte, who didn’t wait long to shout at him in the huddle.
The coaches realized Collins was in over his head eventually and replaced him with Caleb Hanie. Not before wasting two precious offensive drives in the third quarterback. Hanie led the team to two touchdowns to narrow the score 21-14 but a crushing pick-six kept the game out of reach. It’s fair to wonder what might’ve happened had he been given a little more time.
Bennett certainly does.
