This Rick Mirer experiment already looks like an 8th-grade science project gone awry. The Bears don’t really want to put him on the field because they still think Erik Kramer gives them a better chance to win. But an 0-3 record forces them to panic, and now Dave Wannstedt and Matt Cavanaugh hope it doesn’t blow up in their faces.
That Mirer’s debut as the Bears’ starter takes place in Foxboro Stadium provides a strange twist to the story, because the unlikely setting was once a laboratory for a previous Bear quarterback episode with long-term ramifications.
The Bears have made only one other trip to Foxboro to play the Patriots. It was in 1988, and the events are worth recounting. Things go in cycles, they say. For the Bears and their quarterbacks, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Bears were cruising along with a 7-1 record, and Jim McMahon was relatively healthy. He had started every game, the longest streak in any season of his Bears career. But he twisted his right knee early in the game and was replaced by Mike Tomczak.
In the middle of a third-quarter drive, Tomczak threw a ball out of bounds, and coach Mike Ditka yanked him for second-year quarterback Jim Harbaugh. On the sidelines, Ditka yelled at Tomczak, who slammed down his helmet and yelled back.
“I’m a human being, and when someone challenges you, you’ve got to challenge them back,” Tomczak explained. “One thing that has happened to me in the past is that I’ve been paralyzed by a certain individual (Ditka) with my play. I let that affect me mentally.”
Two plays later, Tomczak was put back in.
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“When I took him out of the game, I think I made a mistake,” Ditka said.
Ditka was no doubt driven to distraction by what was happening on the other side of the field. The Patriots stunned the Bears 30-7 when the Patriots’ quarterback completed only six passes, four of them for touchdowns. The quarterback was Doug Flutie.
Flutie had been Ditka’s 1986 pet, hired to salvage the post-Super Bowl season after McMahon was hurt. When that failed, the Bears drafted Harbaugh the following year.
That 1988 Patriots’ game served as a cauldron in which Bear quarterback woes past, present and future boiled over, woes that linger to this day.
It was McMahon’s last regular-season start for the Bears. He was traded before the 1989 season. Ditka went with Tomczak, but never really trusted him. Harbaugh took over until his fateful clash with Ditka in 1992 signaled the beginning of the end for both Chicago careers.
Harbaugh survived one season with Wannstedt and was jettisoned. He just didn’t seem to fit in the new system, they said. He was replaced by Kramer, who also was slow to pick up a new system and was replaced by Steve Walsh.
Skipping ahead, the Bears acquired Mirer, the quarterback drafted second in 1993 behind Drew Bledsoe of the Patriots, Sunday’s opponent.
Here the plot thickens. The Patriots’ new offensive coordinator is Larry Kennan, who happened to be Mirer’s offensive coordinator in Seattle his rookie year. That also happened to be Mirer’s most promising year so far.
Wannstedt interviewed Kennan for the Bears’ offensive coordinator job last off-season, but hired Cavanaugh instead. Cavanaugh had no experience as a coordinator, but had worked with Elvis Grbac in San Francisco. Grbac was a free agent, but the Bears decided to spend their No. 1 draft choice to trade for Mirer instead of signing Grbac.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs signed Grbac. Pro scout Mark Hatley was working for the Chiefs at the time, so he obviously liked him. But Wannstedt and Rod Graves and whoever else was making personnel decisions for the Bears at the time thought Mirer had a stronger upside than Grbac, that Mirer had the physical skills to get a team to the Super Bowl before Grbac would. Cavanaugh agreed.
Hatley was later hired by the Bears and was asked for an appraisal of Mirer.
“He’s a lot like Jim Harbaugh,” Hatley said.
If you can’t appreciate what a fine mess the Bears are in, you have not been paying attention to history.
One more thing: Three days after that last New England game, Ditka had his heart attack. Some things definitely should change. But if Wannstedt were to ask Ditka for advice at the moment, Ditka might offer to trade his New Orleans roster. Quarterback problems weren’t worth that much stress then and aren’t now.