This season will be the ninth of the last 10 in which the Bears have missed the playoffs. And yet there seems little urgency to correct matters
Say this for the Chicago Bears: they lose with a consistent style seen nowhere else in the NFL. While the Cleveland Browns, the league’s standard bearer for failure, seemingly jump from quarterback to quarterback every week and get a new head coach most every season, the Bears fail with a clear plan in place. Never reactionary or quick to pull the trigger on a franchise-altering move, they simply plod ever forward. A steam ship churning towards a horizon that never has a sunrise.
In the 24 years since Mike Ditka moved on from Chicago, the Bears have employed just five head coaches. Jay Cutler has been the team’s unquestioned starting quarterback since arriving via trade before the 2009 season – an NFL era so long past that the Browns were still deciding then between Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson. Only Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees and Matt Ryan have started for the same team longer than Cutler among current QBs.
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