Receiver Curtis Conway is one of the Bears’ stars. However, during training camp at Platteville, Wis., he handed back a trading card a young fan had given him to autograph.
“That’s not me, that’s Greg McMurtry,” Conway said.
McMurtry, of all people, shouldn’t be mistaken for Conway. The receiver once was a Bears cut.
That autograph incident might have been one more crushing blow to a player’s ego. But then, these Bears often blend.
Public recognition is limited. People tend to recognize extremes. Being average, as the Bears have been the last two years with a 16-16 composite record, breeds inattention.
So as coach Dave Wannstedt begins his third year, painting a face on these Bears hasn’t been easy. The colors are vague, none a rainbow hue.
Wannstedt’s first media guide cover showed him shaking hands with Bears President Michael McCaskey. His second cover was a collage of team memorabilia. This year, the focus is a Bears helmet and flag.
Psychology textbooks have more flair than that.
The Bears haven’t had a single player featured on their media guide cover since middle linebacker Mike Singletary in 1991.
It seems the Bears always have been defined by a face, even in the bad years. It was Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in the 1960s, Walter Payton in the ’70s and ’80s, and the two raging faces of Mike Ditka, first as a player in the ’60s and then as a coach in the mid- and late ’80s. In the ’50s they defined the middle linebacker position with George Connor and Bill George, and in the ’40s they had Sid Luckman with the T-formation. Going back to the game’s formative years they had Bronko Nagurski in the ’30s and Red Grange in the ’20s.
But these Bears are harder to pin down.
Asked to assess the strength of his team, which finished the preseason 1-3 and faces division rival Minnesota in the opener Sunday, Wannstedt created a turnover. In a rare misstep, he fumbled the question, running left, running right and finally running down a blind alley as he failed to specify any particular strength.
Wannstedt believes in a team approach, which means not building up too many individuals at the expense of team unity. But is it tearing apart his team to be perceived as an anonymous bunch?
The answers from the players are yes and no.
“Walter Payton, Gale Sayers, those guys are Hall of Famers, and we don’t have any Hall of Famers on our team,” tight end Keith Jennings said. “This stuff about nobody knows us, that’s been the same for the Bears since they won the championship in 1985. Until the Bears win another championship, it’s always going to be that way.”
If Jim McMahon, Otis Wilson, Wilber Marshall and Willie Gault, to name just a handful from 1985, created an aura in which football was secondary to celebrity, there remains no question in offensive tackle Andy Heck’s mind that the present Bears are basically unknowns around Chicago.
“It’s definitely true,” Heck said. “Whether it’s a motivator, I don’t know. For me it’s not. When we start winning, that’s when people take notice.
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“We’ve got some excellent players and an excellent team, but we haven’t played any games yet so I don’t know how good we are. I do know that the players and coaches around this league, the most important critics, know that (cornerback) Donnell Woolford, (safety) Mark Carrier, (linebacker) Joe Cain, (running back) Lewis Tillman and (defensive end) Al Fontenot are as good as there is in the league at those positions.
“Maybe they don’t talk as much as some of the more colorful Bears of the past. But they are still good at what they do.”
In keeping with Wannstedt’s constant preaching of team first and all others second, defensive tackle Carl Simpson identified the Bears’ strength as a feeling instead of a person.
“I think the strength of this team is togetherness,” he said. “We have a lot of young guys and I think in a couple years we will have more players that people recognize as stars.
“I feel like it’s a motivation, even though most of my motivation comes from myself. But you can’t deny it. You do want to be known. So people not knowing who you are . . . it makes you want to not be known as a loser, somebody who couldn’t cut it.”
For others, the question is not only moot, but an irritant. Carrier, a Pro Bowler, is tired of hearing about it.
“People said it so much last year it doesn’t bother us anymore,” Carrier said. “People have said it and said it the last two years. It’s not really a new statement to me.
“Yeah, I think it’s false. Part of the reason it’s said is you guys, the media. You say there’s no face and that’s what the people are going to perceive. So it’s not up to us. We just have to play football. I think the team understands its identity. The most important thing to understand is what we need to do to win games.”
Winning, after all, will make celebrities overnight. It will turn out stars on an assembly line.
“A lot of people don’t know who this team is, but as long as we know who we are, that’s what matters,” cornerback Jeremy Lincoln said. “Maybe you’ll find out if we have a face after the first game Sunday.”