Chicago Bears fans had to watch Deshaun Watson go to work on a marvelous playoff comeback over the Buffalo Bills on Saturday. This inevitably prompted more discussions about how in the hell GM Ryan Pace convinced himself that Mitch Trubisky was a better option than Watson or Patrick Mahomes. A kid with one year of starting experience against a guy with a national championship ring and a guy with a ridiculous stat line across more than two years.
It’s hard for them to accept the fact that Pace liked what he saw on film from Trubisky more than those two. This has led to some truly outlandish theories as to why it happened. Perhaps the craziest is the idea that Bears owners, the McCaskey family, are racist and therefore don’t want black quarterbacks leading their franchise.
It’s such an easy thing to consider. Old, rich, white owners. It’s practically out of a movie script. Is there any actual credence to this though? Let’s review.
Chicago Bears are not racist. They’re just stupid
People get on the Bears for not drafting any black quarterbacks in their history. This is not true, first of all. They have. Vince Evans was their 6th round pick back in 1977. He wound up starting 32 games for them. They also signed Kordell Stewart and Jason Campbell as free agents. Both started games for them as well. However, this isn’t good enough for the critics. How many have they drafted high before?
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Well, the simple answer is none.
Then again it’s not like they’ve had a ton of opportunities. Looking back over their long history, the Bears have had a chance to grab a total of five notable black quarterbacks coming out of college. Guys like Doug Williams, Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair, and Michael Vick weren’t in their reach so they’re out of the discussion.
In 1999, they had a chance to grab Daunte Culpepper with the 7th overall pick. They instead traded down to 12th overall. Culpepper ended up going 11th to Minnesota and the Bears went with Cade McNown out of UCLA.
Their next chance came in 2012 when Russell Wilson was on the board out of Wisconsin. The Bears passed on him twice in the 1st and 2nd rounds. This wasn’t a surprise as the team was still committed to Jay Cutler at that point.
Finally, there is, of course, the fateful decision to take Trubisky at #2 overall rather than Mahomes or Watson. All the evidence suggests racism had nothing to do with this choice. It was a simple matter of Pace falling in love with Trubisky well before the draft process started and never keeping his options open enough to change his mind.
So it wasn’t racism that motivated these Bears decisions. It was something far simpler.
Stupidity.
This is an organization that has a Walter Payton statue in front of their stadium. Lovie Smith was one of the longest-tenured coaches in team history. Ron Graves ran their front office for a stretch in the ’90s. If this theory held any water at all, those jobs would’ve never had black men involved either. It’s nothing but an excuse to explain away the organization’s incompetence at finding good quarterbacks.
