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For Sanity’s Sake, Here’s Hoping this is My Last Justin Fields Column

| February 23rd, 2024


When the Bears drafted Cade McNown in 1999, I didn’t care.

But do you remember the first game of the 2000 season? Against a very good Vikings team, McNown opened 27-41-290-2 and 10 carries, 81 yards and a TD on the ground. From my lounger at the now defunct ESPN Zone in Times Square, I got excited.

When the Bears drafted Rex Grossman in 2003, I didn’t care.

Reverend Dave and I watched that selection, thoroughly intoxicated with some British Browns fans, at a sports pub in Piccadilly Circus. It was a surreal and hysterical experience, but nobody celebrated anything. Yet by early in the 2006 season, there were few doubting Rex could be a top player at the professional level. 

When the Bears drafted Mitch Trubisky in 2017, I didn’t care.

Well, I cared a little, as this was the first real scoop I had been given and was able to break on Twitter. I also won quite a bit of cash off the skeptical patrons of Mother Hubbard’s. (That ripped us off that night and I never returned.) I picked the Bears to go to the Super Bowl in 2019 specifically because of Mitch’s final drive against the Eagles in the Cody Parkey game; a drive I watched in the building. 

When the Bears drafted Justin Fields in 2021, I didn’t care.

While the Robert Mays’s of the world got giddy on their podcasts (why is he always so damn giggly), I hadn’t been impressed by the two college games I’d seen Fields play and saw no reason for ecstasy. But there were clearly moments in his tenure I found genuinely thrilling, most of which were documented on this site. Fields is not a bad quarterback. He’s a limited one. 

When the Bears take their next starting quarterback in April, I won’t care.

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20 Years, 5 First-Round Picks, 0 Quarterbacks.

| December 2nd, 2020


With the 12th pick in the 1999 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears select Cade McNown, quarterback, UCLA.

QB rating through 25 total games with the franchise: 67.7.

__________

With the 22nd pick in the 2003 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears select Rex Grossman, quarterback, Florida.

Best QB rating during his Bears tenure, 2006: 73.9.

__________

With their first-round picks in 2009 and 2010, the Chicago Bears trade for Jay Cutler, quarterback, Denver Broncos.

Number of seasons with a QB rating over 90: 1.

__________

With the second pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears select Mitchell Trubisky, quarterback, North Carolina.

QB rating ranking league-wide in 2019: 28th.

(This year he would be around 26th, only because Nick Foles is on the list.)


That’s it. That’s the post.

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“Who the hell takes the third game in the preseason like it’s bullshit?”

| August 22nd, 2014

When former Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green went on that rant, he created a rallying cry for those who put a lot of stock in preseason, but it’s still debatable if he’s right.

I’ll agree that the third preseason game is the most important of the preseason games, but the main goal is still just to escape healthy.

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