An Attempt to Curb My Enthusiasm

As much as I'd love to make a big "JAY CUTLER WOOOOOO" post here, or at least a second one with text this time, I have to be realistic for a minute. Now don't get me wrong - This is amazing. Regardless of how this all works out in the end, it freaks me out to see the Bears actually make a fucking power move to outbid other teams on an in-demand player. When someone major hits the free agent market or comes up as a trade possibility, the Bears have almost always been satisfied with either ignoring the situation completely or acquiring that player's non-union, Mexican equivalent. Remember, this is the team that in the past few weeks has tried to pass off signing Josh Bullocks, Glenn Earl, and Frank Omiyale as major free-agency coups. You know, with Bullocks best-known as the lesser of the two Bullocks brothers, Earl best-known as the guy who missed two whole seasons after being run over by Cedric Benson of all people, and Omiyale not actually being known, much less being best-known for anything. This is what usually passes for major wheeling-and-dealing in Chicago.
But the thing is, there might be a pretty good reason for that. Let's take a look at what's happened the only three times in my lifetime that I can remember the Bears making a big player acquisition:

2005: Bears sign Muhsin Muhammad - Moose comes in off the best season of his career, as a dependable receiver, a wily veteran, and one of the better blocking receivers in the game. After a few years of Ron Turner's re-re offensive strategies, Darryl Drank's receiver-killing coaching style, and having the ball thrown to him by rejects like Rex Grossman and Brian Griese, he headed back home to Carolina as a washed up husk of his former glory, known more for his inability to successfully catch even the floatiest of passes than anything else. Now, he's best known in Chicago as the guy who threw down the realest of Real Talk when he declared that Chicago was "where wide receivers go to die" in an interview shortly after rejoining the Panthers. This was met with seething outrage by the "Rex Grossman will prove his doubters wrong! Lovie has the plan for victory!" sycophants and the "Why don't we just cut these negroes and start Mike Hass and Brock Forsey instead?" racists that make up the bulk of the Chicago fanbase, and met with quiet, sad agreement by the other five percent of us. He was still a good blocker, though.

1997: Bears trade first and fourth round picks for Rick Mirer - There really was no silver lining here; no upside, no potential for growth, no hope for the future, no "oh, we're giving up a lot, but we're getting a proven super star player," or anything like that. This was quite possibly the most fucking retarded personnel decision any NFL team has ever made. This wasn't a guy like Cutler coming off a Pro Bowl year. No, it was a guy coming off a year with a 2-7 record as a starter, (before losing the starting job) who couldn't even manage a 60 passer rating, and who seemed to be in the twilight of his career, even though it was only four years old. In the end, he only spent one year with the team, never won the starting job from Erik Kramer, and the Bears had to eat most of his 11 million dollar salary. Meanwhile, after some wheeling and dealing of their own that included the two picks they got from the Bears, the Seahawks landed both Shawn Springs and Walter Jones in the first round that year. Twelve years later, Springs is still good enough for the Patriots to throw over three million a year his way, and Jones just made his ninth Pro Bowl. The Bears' first pick in that draft was John Fucking Allred.

1996: Bears sign Bryan Cox - This one fills me with the most current dread, because it reminds me of the Cutler move in a few ways, in both the utter shock of such a move being made by this of all teams and the way it was THE most sought-after player of the off season in question, a guy in his prime, who had just taken an NFL-sanctioned trip to Hawaii. In the end, I wouldn't really call him a bust: In the two years he spent with the team, he never did do the sorts of things he did in Miami, but he was probably Chicago's overall player by a wide margin. But more than anything, he just became a living symbol of the Dave Wannstedt years. A dude who came in living, breathing, eating, sweating, and fucking football, wanting nothing more than to tackle dudes and win football games, but who just could not overcome the event horizon of the black hole of shittiness that was The Wannstache. In the end, even though he actually played okay, he was released way before the end of his big free agent contract for "lack of production," which was a covert way of saying "he hated the coach, and the coach hated him." What should have been a dream situation turned way sour fast because of a head coaching deficiency, and it frightens me to think of what's going to be happening in Cutler's head the first time he gets sacked twelve times in one half, and Lovie Smith's only adjustment is to have his mouth hang open for ten minutes and then tell the team that they need to execute better.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't totally pumped about this deal going down, but I'm not pre-ordering my Cutler jersey just yet. Partially because those goddamn things are like eighty bucks these days, but mainly because I know how these things can work out sometimes, and I know first-hand what it's like to sit there, staring in disbelief, wearing a nearly brand-new Bryan Cox replica road jersey as they announce on SportsCenter that he's not a Bear anymore. So you can put me officially down as "cautiously optimistic," I suppose. The funny part, though, is that with what he's done prior to this point, Jay Cutler's entire Bears career could consist of throwing a pick-six as Omiyale allows Aaron Kampman to add a new point of articulation to his left knee, then lapsing into a diabetic coma, catching on fire, and quietly dying (I say "quietly," because he'd be in a coma and couldn't feel the flames, you understand) right there on the field, and Cutler would still be pretty much the all-time #2 quarterback in Chicago Bears history, just by default.

Not saying I'm not at least somewhat of a believer in Blood Sugar Sex Magic being the Bears' savior, but the hurting never stops, you know?