Stop if you’ve heard this before. The Chicago Bears are really bad at finding quarterbacks. It’s a topic of discussion every year. People can try to talk about the Cleveland Browns but don’t be silly. No franchise has done a more incredible job at avoiding good quarterbacks in the past several decades than the Bears and it’s not even close.
While 2020 may be a year of crazy unexpected things, there is still at least one constant. Chicago’s quarterback situation is a mess. Mitch Trubisky proved that he isn’t the knight in shining armor the team sold him to be back in 2017. That’s not to say he’s a bad guy. He had some nice bright moments but the kid has proven unequal to the herculean task in front of him.
That is why they traded for Nick Foles.
Except that hasn’t worked either. Though a former Super Bowl MVP, the man is proving to be less a savior and more a mirror of the Bears offense. When he has talent around him, Foles can make things happen. When he doesn’t? Well, you get what this team has seen. Foles has been pressured constantly. He’s done everything he can to keep the offense functional but is limited in what he can do.
It’s clearer than ever that what this team has at quarterback this year won’t be part of their future. Maybe Foles survives another season as a bridge option but that’s about it. Chicago should be back on the market for a QB in 2021. Yet not a lot of people have confidence this regime can fix it.
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So why? What are the Bears doing wrong? One former team executive has an idea.
Chicago Bears don’t shoot their shots nearly enough
Bobby DePaul is not a name many Bears fans probably remember. He was the pro personnel director for the team and right-hand man to Jerry Angelo from 2001 to 2010. With his help, the team had a lot of success securing productive veterans including John Tait, Ruben Brown, Thomas Jones, Adewale Ogunleye, and Jay Cutler.
He had a front row seat for the Bears’ futility at quarterback. Cutler was the best move his regime would make given he’d finish with all the passing records. Yet most still consider it an ultimate failure. DePaul was also involved in the drafting of Rex Grossman whom he believed was a good pick in the context of the class he was part of (2003) and the fact he got them to a Super Bowl.
Yet he admits they failed to get a true hit in those 10 years.
Like many, he was left contemplating why. When speaking with Bob McGinn of The Athletic, he revealed that he sought advice from an unlikely source. Then-Green Bay Packers GM Ted Thompson. The man was part of the front office that traded for Brett Favre in 1992 and then drafted Aaron Rodgers as GM in 2005. His reputation at quarterback was beyond reproach.
Thompson’s reply? Fairly humble.
“He turned to me and said, ‘You don’t know whether you got a quarterback until you got him in your building. I’ve picked second-rounders that didn’t play and seventh-rounders that were better than the second-rounders.’”
DePaul was surprised. He’d hope for some sort of magical formula that might point him in the right direction. Instead, he was taught a critical lesson in the realities of player acquisition.
“What I walked away from with Ted was you’ve got to pick ’em. You’ve got to step to the plate when you have a conviction on a player, especially that position.
“I will just say this. Like Ted said, you don’t know until you get them in the building. How the dynamics and chemistry will work. But you’ve got to pick ’em.”
This is the problem that people continue to ignore.
Ready for this? The Chicago Bears have drafted a quarterback exactly twice in the past eight years. David Fales in 2014 and of course Trubisky in 2017. That is out of 62 total picks. By contrast, Thompson drafted three quarterbacks between 2006 and 2008. A year AFTER he took Rodgers with the 24th pick in 2005. The Packers weren’t ready to convince themselves they had the future just yet.
Even with Rodgers ascending to the Hall of Fame they still drafted two more QBs in 2012 and 2015 before Thompson stepped down. The search never stopped even when they had their guy. So what does it say about the Bears that their search basically stopped after drafting Trubisky? One must not forget Ryan Pace said his goal was to draft a quarterback every year. Here it is in 2020 and he’s done it once.
No wonder he’s gotten himself and the organization into this mess.
