Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Chicago Bears 2008 Search for the Guilty: Quarterbacks

2008 saw the arrival of the "Wildcat" formation in the NFL, where you throw a bunch of crazy athletes in the backfield, snap it to a running back, and just disregard the quarterback position entirely. If the Ravens defense hadn't completely exposed and destroyed that thing, I'd be really intrigued by the idea of implementing that as the Bears' main offensive formation. I know, it sounds stupid, because it's some gimmicky crap that's already been exposed like I said, but just think about it this way: THE CHICAGO BEARS HAVE NOT HAD A RELIABLE QUARTERBACK SINCE THE LATE 1940S. JESUS CHRIST, PEOPLE. Why bother using a quarterback, when it's clear that you're never really going to have one? Anyway, to be honest, things weren't as bad as they usually are. Which isn't to say that things went well, but hey, what can you do. Here's how shit went down:

Kyle Orton: Finally got the starting job he should have at least been in the running for since 2006, and for a little while there, he looked it it was actually a thing for me to be happy about. He never actively fucked anything up and even dragged Brandon Lloyd to a 100 yard game at one point. It was like we finally had our guy. Our neckbeard-sporting, Jack Daniels-swigging, underage girl-boning, retro rock t-shirt wearing guy. A quarterback we could be proud to be embarrassed by with an internet full of drunken frat party photos once the season was over. But then, he hurt his ankle in a semi-apocalyptic near-loss to the Lions, (The Lions. Come on now.) and never really was the same after that. Some folks said it was because he had lost his rhythm or was still favoring one leg or whatever, but my observation on the whole thing was that once he came back from the injury, they weren't letting him audible out of all of Ron Turner's ignorant-ass plays anymore. Once he was just playing quarterback, as opposed to running the whole damn passing game, shit got ugly fast. He did manage to get back to early-season form against the Texans in the last game, which is odd, because when he was shitting the games up before that, the team won something like three straight. So maybe it's just destiny that the Bears can't have a good quarterback, because when they do have one, they lose. The last (only?) good all-around offensive team the Bears put together that I can remember was in '95, (the Erik Kramer year) and they ended up finishing .500 and missing the playoffs, so maybe I'm on to something here. Huh.

Rex Grossman: YES. YEEESSSSSS. Eleven o'clock in the p.m., Central time, tomorrow night, and our long national nightmare finally ends, forever and ever, and from fucking now on. Fuck you, Rex Grossman. Eat a dick. Eat a dog dick. Eat a dead dog's dick, Rex Grossman. You fool. You beady-eyed, snap-fumbling, dog dick-eating, throwing-the-ball-straight-up-into-the-air-with-no-concern-for-what-team-it's-going-to pile of shit. A toilet seat that smokes a cigar; that's what you are. You malignant sack of squirrel feces. If it weren't for you, we could have had Kurt Warner here, throwing touchdowns all day for Jesus and the children. Screw you, Rex Grossman. I hope you get some sort of fucked-up snake AIDS. You snake-fucking clown.

Caleb Hanie: This guy never saw the field in 2008, but I'm already half sick of him. You see, he was an undrafted free agent who ended up sticking as the team's emergency #3 quarterback, and apparently if you're one of the mouth-breathing fucktasters who tend to make up the Bears' fanbase, this makes him exactly like Tony Romo, and if we would just let him play, we'd be well on our way to missing the playoffs as underachievers, rather than missing the playoffs as overachievers. Also, he's got one of those names that dudes from high school have who would get blasted on wine coolers and ram a cop car and break some cop's legs, but would get off with just a warning and would be back pitching for the baseball team the next night, because their dad owned the lumber place and totally knew people. Only way it could be worse was if his name was something like Zane or Colby. I know nothing of Caleb Hanie as a quarterback, but his name can kiss my ass.

Final position grade: B+ by Chicago standards, C- by everyone else's. The quarterback play still sucked for most of the year, but even without breaking an 80 in QB rating, Kyle Orton might seriously be one of the team's top ten all-time players at the position. That's just how bad Bears quarterbacks are.

Up next: Running backs.

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