Bears Blitz

Published by Jason Chae on December 20, 2011
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears’ season has turned from promising to tragic in the past four weeks. Going from a surefire playoff team to possibly not even finishing .500 has been quite the punch in the gut to Bears fans. There are many people to blame for what has happened but there is one person who needs to be the ultimate fall guy: Bears general manager Jerry Angelo.

There was some hope even though Jay Cutler had broken his thumb five weeks ago against the San Diego Chargers. The thought was that the Bears had a good enough defense and special teams unit to survive. Any sort of competent quarterback play would allow them to survive the stretch Cutler would be out. Sitting at a comfortable 7-3 record at the time, it was thought the Bears only needed three wins from the their last six games to make it into the playoffs.

Then the world got exposed to the quarterback that is Caleb Hanie. After his three-interception debut as a starter against the Oakland Raiders, the thought was that Hanie would get better. Hanie hasn’t gotten better and at times he’s looked worse than he did against the Raiders. 

Hanie has yet to display any sort of NFL-level quarterback skill except that he can get several yards on a scramble every now and then. However, in skills that matter, he can’t throw the ball accurately or make correct reads. After four weeks he looks confused and defeated as ever. 

Jerry Angelo had Hanie on the roster for four seasons, yet had no idea he was this bad. If he was this bad, there’s no excuse to not have a better backup quarterback. The Cutler injury has exposed how bad the rest of offense really is.

The offensive line had seemed to improve but it was mostly due to Cutler being able to get the ball out quickly. Angelo has tried to sell J’Marcus Webb as a NFL quality left tackle. He still gets beat far too often for a left tackle and draws too many penalties. Left tackle is a very important position in football these days and Angelo has basically ignored it for the last few seasons. 

The receiver group that looked promising? Aside from Earl Bennett there isn’t a professional receiver on the team. Johnny Knox constantly drops balls or falls down (and will now miss significant time due to injury). Devin Hester has never shown he can be a legitimate wide receiver in the league and Roy Williams, as most NFL fans know, is mostly talk and gets little done in terms of concrete results.   

Angelo has routinely ignored offense in his drafts, especially at the offensive line and wide receiver positions. He’s left the offense so thin that when the only players that really matter in Cutler and Forte are injured and unable to play, the team turns from a dark-horse Super Bowl contender to one of the worst teams in football. 

The Bears saga did take somewhat of a surprising twist this week with the arrest of wide receiver Sam Hurd. Hurd was arrested after he agreed to broker a big drug deal with an undercover federal agent and Hurd revealed to the agent that he was already a big-time drug dealer in Chicago.

Angelo was comically defiant at a Bears press conference, insisting the organization could not have known about this. After a reporter asked him if this situation affected his job status, Angelo told the reporter to “whistle dixie,” an odd phrase he used to basically say, “get bent.”

His failure at holding an effective press conference aside, Angelo has had a terrible draft history in his tenure and his overvaluation of Caleb Hanie’s skill level has effectively cost the Bears a playoff spot. The acquisitions of Jay Cutler and Julius Peppers are probably the highlights of his career and those moves largely happened because of the work done by Director of Pro Player Personnel Bobby DePaul, who no longer is with the team.

A new direction is needed for the Bears going forward, someone who realizes offense is what wins championships in the NFL now and can surround Cutler with the talent to compete with the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions. Whistle dixie, indeed. 

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