The Bears need some new history

Kevin Warren plans to give draft prospects a Bears history lesson, so maybe he should leave out the last few decades.

During the last few days, the Chicago Bears’ top brass met with the media at the Annual League Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Chairman George McCaskey, Team President Kevin Warren, General Manager Ryan Poles, and Head Coach Matt Eberflus each had a lot to say about the team, their offseason transactions, and the NFL Draft.

Likely first overall pick, USC quarterback Caleb Williams, was discussed plenty, and while none of the Bears tipped their hand, it’s widely expected Williams’ name will be the first called on draft night.

Warren was part of the Bears brain trust that met with Williams at the Combine, and he plans to meet with him again during Williams’ top-30 visit next week. When asked on Tuesday what he hopes to impress on Williams and the other draft picks the Bears may meet with, he said:

“They need to understand the history and tradition of the Chicago Bears and the history and tradition of these fans.”

Well… with a franchise as old as the Bears, there’s certainly some tradition to spotlight.

Perception is reality

As an older fan of the Bears, I can appreciate the fantastic history of the franchise. I grew up watching the greatest player of all time, Walter Payton, and I lived through the last great era of Bears football. Sure, the 1985 team gets all the publicity, but that was a fun time to be a fan. They were always in the playoff mix, making the postseason seven times in the eight years from 1984 to 1991.

But for some painful perspective, the Bears have only made the playoffs seven times since then.

Seven in the last 32 years.

Caleb Williams is 22 years old.

It’s been nearly four decades since the Bears last won a Super Bowl, and the last time the Bears won the NFC Championship, Williams was five.

I’m not sure what age Williams, or the other soon-to-be rookies, were when they first became fans of the NFL, but the Bears have three winning seasons in the last fifteen years.

In the last ten years, the Bears are a bottom-five franchise with a .387 winning percentage, and they’ve had four head coaches and three general managers.

What college prospects see when looking at the Bears is a dysfunctional tradition.

So their recent history is better left alone, and I’m not sure how much talking Grange, Luckman, Nagurski, Ditka, or Sweetness will resonate with Gen Z anyway.

And besides, Williams grew up a big fan of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, so he’s well aware of the Bears’ recent history.

“The past is the past.”

Yesterday Ryan Poles was a guest on the Pat McAfee show, and he was asked about some recent comments from ESPN’s Robert Griffin III, who suggested Williams pull an Eli Manning and refuse to play for the Bears.

“It pisses me off a little bit, to be honest with you,” Poles said about Griffin. “Because we were hired to break a cycle. This same thing when I was in Kansas City. Coach Reid, all of us were brought there to break a cycle. And we did. No one talks about those days anymore, it’s all about what they are right now.”

In his eleven years in Kansas City, head coach Andy Reid has never had a losing season, and they’ve won three Super Bowls. In the fifteen years before the Chiefs hired Reid, they made the playoffs just three times.

Poles, who worked his way up from scouting assistant to Executive director of player personnel, played a role in their turnaround and ultimate success.

McAfee said from the outside looking in, it seems these Bears are different from previous regimes and that Poles and Eberflus’ culture is starting to settle in.

“I really believe we’re about to break this cycle and get this city in a really good situation and win a lot of games,” Poles said. “So the past is the past. I don’t worry about that at all. It’s about where we’re going.”

And where they’re going, unless something drastic pops up, is towards Caleb Williams.

Rewriting history

The rookie bar for quarterback play in Chicago is a low one. Mitch Trubisky threw for the most passing yards (2,193), and Charlie O’Rourke had the most passing touchdowns (11).

The Bears are also the only franchise in the NFL without a 4,000-yard passer in a single season or a quarterback who has thrown for 30 touchdowns in one year.

The Bears haven’t had an All-Pro QB since Johnny Lujack in 1950, and they’ve only had two quarterbacks named to the Pro Bowl in the Super Bowl era.

It’s fair to say the Bears have historically failed as an organization at developing quarterbacks, which brings us back to Poles’ comments about breaking the cycle: “The past is the past.”

At last month’s NFL Combine, Caleb Williams was asked if Chicago’s poor track record at the quarterback position bothered him.

“Not at all. I don’t compare myself to the other guys that are there or have been there. I think I am my own player,” he said. “I tend to like to create history and rewrite history.”

Chicago’s franchise heads into year three of the Poles/Eberflus regime, and the roster is uniquely ready to support a rookie quarterback.

“The Bears were a 7-10 team,” Williams said from the Combine. “That is a pretty good team that has the first pick. And they’ve got a good defense. They’ve got good players on offense, and it’s pretty exciting if you can go into a situation like that.”

Those remarks were made before the Bears signed running back D’Andre Swift and tight end Gerald Everett in free agency and traded for Pro Bowl wide receiver Keenan Allen.

In addition to the players they’ve added, they’ve also completely revamped the offensive coaching staff to ensure a seamless transition from the college game to the NFL for whichever rookie quarterback they draft.

There isn’t a historical precedent for putting the best rookie quarterback prospect on an ascending team that is three offseasons into a massive rebuild.

Ryan Poles may be able to draw parallels between what they did in K.C. and what he’s building in Chicago, but he, and eventually Caleb Williams, will be writing their own history in Chicago.