And for the first trick out of their brand new bag, the Bears draft a bunch of conversation pieces, which is better than the usual odd-sized linebacker.
It really doesn’t matter if these guys can play football. What the Bears needed was less to choose the quarterback of the future than to offer a reason to care about the present, lately as lacking as season ticket-holders at Soldier Field. It has to be considered a good day when they can get both.
In an uncharacteristic flurry of dealing and finger-crossing Saturday, the Bears managed to get the first player they–and most of their residual fans–wanted as well as picking rights further down the draft tree.
“We had a plan,” player personnel clerk Mark Hatley said, “and it couldn’t have worked out better than it worked out. We’re excited.”
Just as long as everybody is happy, which everyone always is on draft day. Misery comes later, not to keep picking on Alonzo Spellman.
And it wasn’t just a plan, it was a flexible plan, a plan adjusting to other plans, the kind of draft-day finagling that usually is done in San Francisco or Dallas, places where draft day is an expected benefit and not a perpetual regret.
That kind of plan. Even if these guys don’t know what they’re doing, they are doing so much of it that Bears fans who have wandered off will have to come back just to see what all the fuss is about.
Nothing up Hatley’s sleeve. Presto, whamo. Six picks become 11. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. And don’t question too closely that second-round pick from North Carolina.
Whether it is all sleight of hand or application of brain, never has there been a draft day quite like this one for the Bears.
When the first day was done, it did not matter exactly which players the Bears had selected because the getting of them was as impressive as the pile they made.
However Cade McNown works out at quarterback with the Bears, whether the rest are a bunch of spitwads, here’s the important thing: The Bears actually appeared to know what they were doing. They knew who they wanted with their first pick, they knew how to get him and they’re not looking back.
“He’s our future,” Hatley said of McNown, not to put any pressure on the kid. Or on himself.
“Gosh, this is an exciting, exciting thing,” McNown said.
Well, an odd, odd thing anyhow, and just in time.
The Bears took a giant step away from the bleakness of Wannstedt, the goofiness of McCaskey, the rejection by McGinnis, the general gut-splitting hilarity of, as McNown, referred to the Bears, “the most storied franchise in the NFL.”
McNown was righter than he knew because all the stories lately have had a punch line, none more amusing than Mom McCaskey sending her eldest to the potting shed.
So there they were beaming, the new bunch, the grin-and-grits Hatley, the fully tailored coach, Dick Jauron, the unobtrusive and open-necked top guy, Ted Phillips. They were bringing the good news. If they had been any more smug, they would have needed a bib.
“We’re just so happy to get our guy,” Jauron said. “This is a huge step.”
As for that guy, McNown, he was just as happy to be here as the Bears are to have him, and why shouldn’t he be? He’ll be given the same chance to unseat Erik Kramer that Rick Mirer was, with Kramer back from injury as he was when Mirer was essentially an 11th pick. Plus the two of them will be starting even in a new offensive system.
So meticulously did the Bears consider McNown, they had his speed in the 40-yard dash to a hundredth of a second under 4.7 and his height down to an eighth-inch under 6 feet 1 inch.
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“He’s about the size of a lot of guys that size,” new offensive coordinator Gary Crowton explained.
This was their guy all along, and yet the Bears dared to drop down to get McNown, still getting him a half-dozen places higher than he might have gone. McNown was generally considered no better than the fifth best behind quarterbacks Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, Akili Smith and Daunte Culpepper.
As it turns out, this is just where McNown was placed, to the rear of the other four, but still 15 places ahead of where Dan Marino was picked during the last great quarterback draft. The whole bunch of them together might not make a Marino, a John Elway or a Jim Kelly, but they will forever give this draft its identity. And the Bears got one of them.
The right one? Certainly the most confident one. McNown comes with conviction, though a slightly stronger left arm and a smoother delivery might be worth more.
“The Bears got a great pick at No. 12,” McNown said, establishing a new standard in self-reference. He may be the first athlete to refer to himself in the third person numerical.