Dave Wannstedt keeps doing the right thing for the Bears to no avail. Anybody who thinks the coach should have kept Alonzo Spellman around, raise your eyebrow.
Just like it was the right decision to re-sign Spellman in 1996, it is the right decision to let him go now. A no-brainer, so to speak.
Spellman has personal problems, but the Bears appear to be only a halfway house. They aren’t in the personal rehabilitation business. They have enough problems of their own on the football rehab front, which always coincides with the defensive front.
In 1996 they could have let Spellman go to Jacksonville in free agency and signed pass-rushing specialist Alfred Williams. But the idea of pairing the big, young Spellman with another free-agent pass rusher, Bryan Cox, made more sense. Spellman could play tackle as well as end, just as Cox could play end as well as middle linebacker.
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It failed miserably, like just about everything else the Bears have tried during the Wannstedt era.
The coach arrived with a front four of Richard Dent, William Perry, Steve McMichael and Trace Armstrong and a record of 5-11. Nobody second-guessed him when he got Chris Zorich into the lineup in place of Perry and eventually got rid of Dent and Armstrong to make room for the development of Spellman and John Thierry.
Trouble was Dent and Armstrong had 10 sacks between them playing elsewhere in 1997 while Spellman and Thierry had five. Dent was 37 years old, Armstrong 32.
Spellman never developed. Never as natural an athlete as he looked, Spellman was never going to have the quickness and instinct of a Dent. Ever wonder why he was always a split-second late off the ball? Some things can’t be taught.
Although Dent argued that Spellman could have progressed given better coaching, could Wannstedt or defensive line coach Clarence Brooks have done anything to salvage Spellman’s personal behavior?
Until a few months ago, Spellman provided the Bears with ammunition to talk trade with the Arizona Cardinals and possibly wind up with draft choice Andre Wadsworth. Now Wannstedt has nothing except another clean slate from which to start over.
Eventually, the law of averages will cut the Bears a break.
When they released Jim Harbaugh and replaced him with Erik Kramer, who complained? Harbaugh’s confidence looked shot. Yet Harbaugh since has enjoyed more success than Kramer.
When they kept Michael Timpson instead of Jeff Graham and hid behind the salary cap, it looked like a reasonable idea at the time.
When they drafted Rashaan Salaam instead of believing in fourth-rounder Raymont Harris, how could they go wrong with a young Heisman Trophy winner?
When they got rid of third-round pick Chris Gardocki for second-round pick Todd Sauerbrun, it was after an off year for Gardocki. Who knew Gardocki would beat Sauerbrun to the Pro Bowl as the punter?
When they drafted tight end Chris Gedney, who knew they would have to draft tight end John Allred, then tight end Alonzo Mayes–all to try to beat out free agent Ryan Wetnight?
The wheel-spinning has extended to every position, from linebackers Ron Cox, Vinson Smith and Joe Cain to cornerbacks Anthony Blaylock and Jeremy Lincoln and Donnell Woolford to guards Vernice Smith and Jay Leeuwenburg and Todd Burger and Bob Sapp to safeties Mark Carrier and John Mangum and now a rookie, Tony Parrish.
Nowhere is the failure more dismal or debilitating than on the defensive front, where the Bears will line up Thierry, Shawn Lee, Mike Wells, Jim Flanigan, Carl Simpson, Paul Grasmanis and Mark Thomas this year and try to improve on 4-12.
This looks suspiciously like 1977, when the Bears managed to make the playoffs with a front that included Ron Rydalch, Jim Osborne, Billy Newsome, Mike Hartenstine, Jerry Meyers and Roger Stillwell. Coach Jack Pardee quit and issued this plaintive cry: “Who’s going to rush the passer?”
It was two more years before the Bears drafted Dan Hampton, four more until they found McMichael, six more until they added Dent, eight more before they got to a Super Bowl.
The departure of Spellman is good. It leaves no illusions. For the same reason, it’s too bad.