He had a nice little career here did Kevin Butler, for a kicker, only the best ever for the Bears. Scored more points than Payton, stayed more years than Butkus, played more games than Ditka.
Butler turns out to be the last hero out of town, when it should have been, oh, Jimbo Covert or Wilber Marshall, somebody substantial, somebody who perspired.
And now they are all gone, all those dashing young warriors who won four Super Bowls fewer than they should have, but the only one the Bears may ever get.
Not to be too pessimistic, but the present bunch has about as much chance of winning a Super Bowl as Mike McCaskey does of winning a limbo contest, or of entering one.
And the release of Butler is a loud statement that this season is a complete surrender, for if the Bears really wanted to win, they would have kept the best kicker, not the cheapest one, not the youngest one, not the other one.
Not Carlos Huerta.
“We had to get better at that position,” said coach Dave Wannstedt. “We wanted to improve our team.”
Spoken like a boss with a contract extension.
Here at the beginning of Year 4 of the Wannstedt Era, we find the Bears worse off than in Year 1. Maybe some of the people are a little better off, Erik Kramer for one. Any of the linebackers for some others.
The running backs are still film in the camera. Who knows what will develop?
But the defense is worse, the special teams are worse, the kicking game is worse, and worse yet, the Bears are further back in line, not just behind the 49ers and the Cowboys, but behind the Packers and the Lions, and on the odd Monday night, the Vikings.
Not only have the best teams remained better, but the familiar teams have outdistanced the Bears as well. Hiring Detroit’s quarterback has not made the Bears as good as the Lions, and the relocation of Anthony Morgan in Green Bay has not ruined the Packers.
Wannstedt has lost touch with the givens, that the Bears could at least beat their neighbors, and neither adding Bryan Cox nor losing Jeff Graham has caught the Bears up.
Optimism is a counterfeit drum major, leading the Bears out of the preseason into the back alley of truth. And what is true is, the Bears are a very ordinary, very shallow, very beatable football team.
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If anything happens to Kramer, the Bears will not win another game. Rashaan Salaam and Raymont Harris, if healthy, do not appear willing to fall on a grenade, one for the other, or even throw the nuisance block.
The Bears are one offensive lineman away from being crossing guards. Never mind the fact that in what has become the best passing division in football, the worst thing the Bears do is defend the pass.
This is, at best, a .500 team and at worst, Tampa Bay’s footwipe. It could happen. Tampa Bay could pass the Bears. Anyone who can pass can pass the Bears.
I make the Bears 7-9.
“Carlos gives us a chance to be better,” Wannstedt said. Oh. Can he cover Herman Moore or Cris Carter?
Butler, on his best day, was not going to make the difference necessary for this Bears team to make a difference. And nostalgia aside, this is a negligible decision. Changing kickers is like changing barbers.
That makes it all the more remarkable that Butler outlasted Ditka and Singletary and Hampton and the Fridge, even if all he had to do was kick a ball that didn’t move, and only when it mattered.
Huerta should do it half as well, and he probably will.