Tying It All Together
When you look at the recent history of the Bears, which you can bet Pace is going to do, you’ll notice two things. First, the last time Chicago went from worst to first they drafted two quarterbacks high (Grossman in ’03 and Orton in ’05), build a very strong defense and made special teams a top priority (the Bears signed Gould in ’05 and drafted Devin Hester in ’06). After doing this the Bears won the division three out of the next six seasons, appeared in the Super Bowl and produced a few Hall of Fame players. This was all after a 2004 season that witnessed Jonathan Quinn and Craig Krenzel lead the Bears.
The second thing you will notice in the recent history of the Bears is the Jay Cutler trade. Rather than building through the draft and making the good parts of the team elite, the Bears opted to trade Kyle Orton and two first-round picks to acquire ‘a proven quarterback.’ Despite the fact that Cutler had never made the playoffs, the Bears packaged a deal for him as if he was the next Drew Brees. That all happened in 2009, Chicago has won the division once, finished second once and come in third or fourth SIX times since that deal. That’s a huge factor fans need to consider when they are calling for the team to trade the house for Jimmy Garoppolo.
The point of the story is this …. back in 2005 the Bears were in an extremely similar situation. Rather than reaching on a low-graded quarterback (unfortunately being Aaron Rodgers), the Bears opted to take the best player on the board (Benson) and hold off until the earlier rounds to get a quarterback (Orton in the fourth). They focused on building a very strong defense and special teams (see the recent news of the Bears scouting the Idaho kicker?), while making the run game a top priority.
The result? An 11-5 season, and Chicago went from worst to first.
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It’s been done before people, and you can bet your ass Pace knows that.
