Chicago Bears fans probably remember the name Ron Turner pretty well. He’s the only man in team history to serve as offensive coordinator on two different occasions. First from 1993 to 1996 and again from 2005 to 2009. During that span, he had his fair share of success. The Bears made the playoffs three times under his direction. He also got career years out of a number of quarterbacks.
Perhaps the two most well-known of his proteges were Rex Grossman and Jay Cutler. Grossman was the starter on the 2006 team that went 13-3 and reached the Super Bowl. Cutler spent a season with Turner in 2009, finishing that year strong with eight touchdowns in the final two games. One would think Turner would have some measure of admiration for the two.
That assumption would be erroneous.
Jeff Dickerson of ESPN caught up with the former offensive coordinator to talk about the Bears’ lengthy issues at quarterback. The 66-year old wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. It started with why Grossman never lived up to his potential.
“I love Rex, but his preparation was inconsistent, and that’s how he played,” Turner said. “That Super Bowl year, Rex had some really good games, but he also had some really awful games.”
“Everyone in Chicago also said, there’s ‘Good Rex’ and ‘Bad Rex,’ and that was the thing that hurt him,” Turner said. “He had tremendous talent, but the inconsistencies in his preparation showed up on game day.”
Turner wasn’t done.
He was equally blunt about his brief time with Cutler. For starters, he was against the trade from the start. There was no reason for it in his mind. Once it happened, it became clear that the new arrival was not the same personality he was used to coaching.
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“I said at the time that I was not for the trade,” Turner said. “I said at the time that Orton was getting better and the guys in the locker room loved him. Kyle was a leader. The team respected him. There is no doubt we would have won a lot of games and Orton would have had a very, very good career had we just left him as the starter. I was not for the trade at all…
…”It was just an up-and-down year,” Turner said. “Jay was up and down. I don’t think he ever bought into what we were doing. He wanted his own coordinator in there. He wanted someone different. His demeanor and his attitude and his preparation kind of showed that.”
Ron Turner has experience on his side with those critiques
While Turner might be somewhat bitter with how his tenure ended in Chicago, he has a right to feel that way. Grossman never looked like the most disciplined quarterback on the field. The man himself even admitted to being unprepared at times. As for Cutler? His stubbornness was likely born of being in a successful offensive system in Denver under Mike Shanahan. So he was going into that situation with Turner somewhat close-minded. Had he been more receptive, it’s fair to wonder if things might’ve been different.
Turner has no doubt they would’ve been. It seems like his consistent gripe about most of the QBs he coached in Chicago was a lack of total commitment. Not just Grossman and Cutler. He said the same thing about Erik Kramer during his first stint in the ’90s. It’s fair to wonder what might’ve happened were he running things when Mitch Trubisky arrived in 2017. The two probably would’ve hit it off immediately.
Such is the sad reality of Bears quarterbacks.
