Bears Blitz

Published by DJ Siddiqi on December 6, 2011
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

Yeah, I know Lovie Smith has repeatedly stated the Chicago Bears won’t sign another quarterback.

I realize that according to his words, the Bears are content with their current quarterback situation.

The problem is, their current quarterback situation consists of three quarterbacks who aren’t good enough to start in the NFL.

Current starting quarterback Caleb Hanie looks absolutely lost out there. He can’t drive the offense down the field, has thrown six interceptions, recently mustered a quarterback rating of 23.8 and is 0-2 since taking over as a starter.

Josh McCown was picked up off of the street as a free agent a couple of weeks back in the aftermath of Jay Cutler‘s injury. He hasn’t been a starting quarterback in the league since 2007 with the Oakland Raiders.

Nathan Enderle was a late-round draft pick of the Bears in 2011 and has yet to throw an NFL pass.

Their quarterback situation obviously isn’t pretty, but let’s look at their remaining schedule.

Week 14 – at Denver

Week 15 – vs. Seattle

Week 16 – at Green Bay

Week 17 – at Minnesota

The Bears have three games on the road remaining and all three of them are tough.

Outside of Green Bay, the Broncos are the hottest team in the NFL. If the Bears are having a hard time defeating teams like the Chiefs, it’s not going to be easy defeating the Denver Broncos.

The Seahawks game is a winnable game, but unless the Bears get improved play from the quarterback position, the Seahawks could easily defeat Chicago at Soldier Field. Remember, this is a Seahawks team that has defeated the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Giants on the road. No game in the NFL is a “gimme”.

The Packers are 12-0. Enough said.

The Vikings are one of the league’s worst teams, but they always play their opponents tough at home. They lost a heartbreaker to the Broncos by three points in Week 13, lost by six to Oakland and Green Bay and lost in overtime to the Lions in Week 3.

When looking at that schedule and considering the Bears’ quarterback situation with their recent play over the past two weeks with Hanie, the best case scenario would be going 2-2 the rest of the way.

That is being generous.

With the loss of Matt Forte for at least two weeks, the Bears have lost one of their best players and what was currently their best offensive player for potentially the remainder of the season.

The Bears are hopeful that Jay Cutler can come back before the end of the regular season, but Cutler has already stated he won’t rush back from injury and he might miss the remainder of the season.

In a nutshell, the Bears are missing two of their best offensive players, are currently at 7-5 and positioned for a wild card spot with a somewhat tough remaining schedule and they refuse to sign veteran quarterback to stabilize the situation.

With how jumbled the NFC playoff picture is, if the Bears stick with Hanie, it’s difficult to see them getting into the postseason.

As much as Bears fans hate hearing about it, they must sign Favre or McNabb.

Does this necessarily mean that either McNabb or Favre will automatically save the Bears’ season and lead them into the playoffs?

No, but it’s certainly a better option than having Hanie start the remaining four games, a quarterback that hasn’t seen action since 2007 and a rookie fifth-round draft pick who played at the University of Idaho.

McNabb would likely be the safer option. He has played recently, starting in six games for the Minnesota Vikings before being benched for first round draft pick Christian Ponder.

Did he light up the stat sheet with great statistics? No.

However, he provided the Vikings with what he’s been known for his entire career.

He didn’t commit turnovers.

He only had two interceptions in six games. Compare that to Hanie’s six in two games, which created the difference in close contests with the Raiders and Chiefs and it’s easy to see that McNabb is the far option between the two.

For a team that has a good defense, the Bears need a quarterback who can be a game manager.

Although McNabb hasn’t been a part of a winning team since 2009 and has slowly regressed over the past two seasons, he can still be a stable veteran presence for a contending team for a short period of time.

The Bears fit that bill.

Favre on the other hand, would be a much more risky signing. But it could pay huge dividends in the end.

Before Favre went through his catastrophic 2010 season that saw him throw 11 touchdowns against 19 interceptions while leading the Vikings to a 6-10 record, Favre had perhaps the best season of his career in 2009 when he had 33 touchdowns against 7 interceptions for the highest quarterback rating in his career (107.2), all while leading the Vikings to the NFC Championship game.

Assuming Favre is fully healthy as he was in 2009, the potential is there for Favre to be a season-changer, whether people would like to admit that or not due to his history as a Green Bay Packer and because of the media hoopla he brings with him.

Look, I realize it’s not that simple playing in the NFL.

It’s not as easy as “this quarterback is a better quarterback than any of our current quarterbacks, so let’s sign him and he’ll immediately lead us to where we want to be.”

It takes a lot of time to learn the playbook, it takes time developing a connection with your receivers, it takes time learning the tendencies of your teammates and it takes time learning all of the means of communication that makes each NFL team distinctive from one another.

However, when you are fighting for your playoff lives as the Bears are, it can’t hurt rolling the dice.

As of the current moment, the Bears need to roll the dice in order to make it to the playoffs.

If they don’t, they’ll be watching the postseason from home.

Read more Chicago Bears news on BleacherReport.com