You’re half expecting this to happen, maybe after another loss Sunday in Philadelphia. Coach Dick Jauron stands on a platform fielding reporters’ questions. You can’t tell if he has just coached a Chicago Bears game or helped his daughters with their homework.
He speaks with an almost patronizing earnestness. No doubt some of us read football on a 2nd-grade level. But some of Jauron’s answers don’t make sense. He confuses game situations and lapses into double-talk that would be laughable if it weren’t coming from a Yale man.
Finally one reporter says, “Coach, forgive me for asking, but are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No,” Jauron says, “but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”
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You’re starting to suspect Jauron and his coordinators have done a great job of only this: Convincing us they know what they’re doing when they don’t have much idea. You keep waiting–hoping–for their master plan to come clear. But the harder you look, the more you see a Three Stooges episode.
Curly, Moe and Larry think they’re boarding the bus to Peoria. Instead it’s the team bus parked outside a downtown hotel and it pulls away before the real coaches board. So Moe impersonates Jauron, Curly becomes Gary Crowton and Larry does Greg Blache. Seriously, are we far from this?
Sunday night Blache chose to rest the team’s one true talent, rookie middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, on what turned into a game-turning 72-yard touchdown run by Minnesota’s Robert Smith. Since when do rookies need to rest? Yet personnel man Mark Hatley admitted on draft day he would have taken wide receiver Plaxico Burress over Urlacher if Pittsburgh hadn’t taken Burress. That day coaches announced Urlacher would play strong-side linebacker instead of the position he was born to play–middle. Urlacher struggled mentally through a wasted training camp before being demoted. If incumbent middle linebacker Barry Minter hadn’t been hurt, Urlacher, now odds-on NFC defensive rookie of the year, would probably still be second string at the wrong position.
Mind-blowing. Greg “Blah-Blah” Blache talks a much better game than he coaches.
Jauron actually said Monday of quarterback Cade McNown: “We believe he’s probably more accurate than we believe he is right now.”
Mike Ditka could get away with similar head-scratchers, but only after winning a Super Bowl. If Jauron’s team continues riding the Holiday Inn Express into next season, Jauron won’t be long for Chicago.
Jauron also had the (pick one) audacity/naivete to insist: “I feel we’re a better team [than last year] and that we’re earning how to win but just not fast enough for everybody’s benefit.”
Surely this insulted the intelligence of season ticket-holders. The 1-6 Bears were 3-4 at this point last year. But last year Jauron came up with a cockamamie scheme to play rookie McNown a series a game. This proved brilliant only because, with Shane Matthews and Jim Miller running Crowton’s offense, some of us were fooled into believing Crowton was the next Bill Walsh.
But some of us also ranted that rookie McNown should play every snap. Get his growing pains out of the way, get a read on whether he’s indeed the future, get another high pick. This year should have been last year for McNown.
Same for chameleon Curtis Enis, who was told last year to drop 25 pounds so he could be an every-down back. This was like telling Sybil to get a makeover.
Remember last Thanksgiving at Detroit? The Bears were 5-6 with the NFL’s hottest passer, Miller, going against a team with a decimated defensive backfield. Crowton ran Enis Lite six times in the first quarter as the Bears fell behind 21-0. Since then Crowton’s best game plan has been his escape route from the media after losses.
Crowton–like Jauron a fine fellow–would be looking like much more of a mastermind with Miller at QB. But Crowton hasn’t demonstrated much creative conviction in doing the best with what he has. Still players continue to support the caring, compassionate Jauron, whose camps and practices are among the NFL’s least physical. You’d think Jauron was coaching piano. His Bears play more like Liberace.
But wait. Fellow Yalie Michael McCaskey hired Jauron, then dropped out of sight. Is it possible? The soft voice, glazed eyes, clueless look. “Halloween 2000”: Michael McCaskey is impersonating Dick Jauron.