The Curse of Tobin endures. Isn’t that just so typically Bear-like? Other teams have the Curse of the Bambino, something romantic and epic.
Even the Cubs have the Curse of Brock or the Curse of the Billy Goat to count on. The most the Bears merit is the lingering voodoo of draft clerk Bill Tobin, or the Brothers Tobin, to give the thing a Dostoyevskian stretch.
Something beyond mere ineptness has to be responsible for the Bears’ whopping bad judgment with draft picks, top draft picks, most especially, as well as with the odd free agent, and that is the last I shall mention Bryan Cox.
Will this latest No. 1 choice, a rather paunch-prone running back from Penn State, a pick worth second-guessing even before his recent notoriety, turn out to be just another in a long line of folly?
Being out of camp and overpriced, Curtis Enis may make the Rashaan Salaam setback seem like the remedy of the decade. Salaam was merely a fumble-prone, immature misjudgment. He did have a Heisman Trophy, after all.
Enis is, most probably and at least, misguided, asking for too much money, delaying his future and generally raising eyebrows. Although Enis may turn out to be the bearer of great glory and a perfect citizen, he seems in no hurry to change anyone’s mind.
Is this any way to rebuild, or re-rebuild, the Bears, wherever the Wannstedt Interlude is in the great time continuum?
Why does this seem to always happen to the Bears?
After much research and cross-referencing and blind guessing, I’m picking Tobin.
All I know is nothing has worked since Tobin left.
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Too bad the Curse of Ditka can’t be applied here because Ditka does have a bit of romance about him, like, oh, Captain Queeg or one of the Borgias. But Ditka deserved what he got and Tobin didn’t, so there it is.
Tobin’s last unfettered draft pick was Alonzo Spellman, although Tobin was still being tolerated at the time of Curtis Conway. Tobin even announced the choice, through clenched teeth, as I recall.
Before Spellman was Stan Thomas, and leaving Spellman and Thomas behind should have been enough revenge for anybody, enough for Tobin being unfairly dissed in favor of the new wonder coach and overall bigfoot, Dave Wannstedt.
As we know, Tobin went on to solid mediocrity in Indianapolis, devising a strategy based on hiring the people he drafted for the Bears.
He did get the Colts to the AFC championship game, or Bears castoff Jim Harbaugh did, within one play of the Super Bowl, significantly higher up the ladder of success than anything the Bears have done lately.
Tobin is no longer in Indy, and the Colts have just paid a ransom for quarterback Peyton Manning, who may turn out to be to Ryan Leaf what Spellman is to, say, Santana Dotson, whom the Bears could have had instead.
The Colts will learn if the Tobin Curse is portable, but nothing compares to what has happened to the Bears. Thomas and Spellman, we know about. Conway? Solid underachiever.
John Thierry is not just a square peg that won’t fit into a round hole. If that were the case, you could just knock off a few corners and cram him in there, which is pretty much what the Bears have tried to do.
Thierry has to be a shape shifter, always the wrong size for whatever the job is.
Walt Harris? Who knows? He was a sophomore liability. (Behind you, Walt!) And this brings us to the greatest Tobin revenge of all, quarterback Rick Mirer.
Practically and regrettably, Mirer was the last first-round draft choice Wannstedt will ever have. You could hear the laughter all the way up I-65.
Thus now do the Bears have Mark Hatley casting about and pulling in the same uncertain debris as those before him.
This is how strange it is for Enis and his raw agent to demand more than the Bears are (or “were”) willing to pay. Opinion is on the side of Michael McCaskey.
That is quite an achievement, turning sympathy to the least popular sports figure in Chicago whose name is not Jerry.
Tobinesque, actually.