clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Same Story, Different Year: Mike Brown Looking for a Home, Bears Still Looking for His Replacement

Last offseason, we pondered who would fill Mike Brown's shoes after his departure from the Bears.  Brown found a home in Kansas City, and the Bears continued their musical chairs act in the defensive backfield.

Just over a year later, Brown is again looking for a home, and the Bears are still looking for his replacement.  Per this article, Brown visited Arizona on Friday, but is likely not going to find a match there.

Unfortunately for Brown, Arizona may not be the best fit considering the Cardinals have Adrian Wilson, Kerry Rhodes and Matt Ware on the roster, but the former second-round pick out of Nebraska proved he could still play last season.

Brown, who originally hails from Scottsdale, Ariz., had 103 tackles and three interceptions for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2009, participating in all 16 regular season games for the first time since 2003.

Brad Biggs documented a while back the history under Lovie Smith at the Safety position.

The Bears have changed starting safeties 41 times since Lovie Smith arrived in 2004, with a near-even split between the two positions.

Twenty-one times the starting free safety has changed from one game to the next, and 20 times the starting strong safety has changed. You can't get that kind of near symmetry unless you are trying or something has gone wrong, very wrong.

Smith cites injuries and the difficulty of keeping players healthy at the position for much of the turnover. He has a point: A good portion of the change occurred when the Bears were forced to go to Plan B after Mike Brown was injured through the latter half of his career with the organization.

But Brown was only one man and with him gone this past season, the Bears still changed starting free safeties four times and starting strong safeties five times.

Dizzy yet?
As we move closer to the start of the 2010 NFL season, I wonder how things will turn out for Brown, and also if we will be any closer to filling the void he left here in Chicago.  We've heard folks mumbling about the possibility of moving up in the draft to try and snag a second rounder, and with Jerry Angelo at the helm, we never really know what to expect.


One thing we do know though: Lovie Smith is willing to try anything to get the Safety position figured out.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see...