clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

The Bears have gone full dysfunctional

The Oakland Raiders, the Washington football team, the New York Jets...and the Chicago Bears? The twists and turns and losses of this season have turned the most storied franchise in the NFL into a laughing stock, one every bit as dysfunctional and messed up as the league's most notorious.

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Since the bomb dropped this morning that offensive coordinator was airing his frustrations about his quarterback to the NFL Network anonymously and then owned up to it, the season, and career, of many of the current occupants at Halas Hall is officially over.

There is just no way that the team can bring back each of Aaron Kromer, Mel Tucker, Jay Cutler and Marc Trestman. Not after one's been reported to be on the chopping block already, one might be on the trade block and one is whispering to the media secretly and all this is going on under the eye of the other.

No, no, no. This regime has crashed and burned and there is no turning back.

Jay Cutler has been known to have trust issues with his coaches ever since he left Denver and came to Chicago in his 2009 trade. Those trust issues allegedly contributed to him running through Ron Turner, Pep Hamilton and Mike Martz. Why on Earth would someone he seemingly got along well with in Kromer, admit to the guarded QB that he was airing his grievances to NFL insiders?

I understand owning up to your mistakes, but this just seems like career suicide. I for one would completely understand if Cutler refuses to talk to Kromer from here on out. Just the fact that he owned up to this makes it baffling that he is still employed inside Halas Hall. His security card should have been revoked and he should have passed out a letter of resignation with his team apology.

But none of that matters right now because, frankly, at this point it seems ludicrous to believe that anyone inside the organization would be insane enough to bring these people back for another season. It doesn't matter how well the practices these people lead are, it's an absolute dumpster fire.

This is just the latest story to come out that puts this franchise in the conversation with the perennial dumpster fires like Washington, Oakland and the New York Jets. Those teams have locker room fights, coach-player conflicts, practice brawls, lots of head coaching turnover and a new quarterback every couple of years.

Chicago is supposed to be better than that. This is a charter franchise, still owned by the same family that founded it, this team has the second-most league championships, they are one of only two teams with 700 wins.

Sadly, it's been years since the Bears were the class of the NFL. They've fallen so far and while they were coming back they've only fallen further and now, hopefully, mercifully, they may have hit rock bottom.

The whole regime has to go, this is an embarrassment and possibly one of the darkest hours in the franchise's history. To be closer in terms of environment and on-field results to some of the most poorly run teams in the league is just sad.

Think about the disfunction these are franchises and have and compare it with Chicago:

-Washington is in their first season with a new head coach and allegedly the relationship between the coach and quarterback Robert Griffin III is so bad that, possibly, the general manager and the owner are dictating who should be playing; by all accounts both RGIII and Jay Gruden cannot return next season to work together.

-Oakland is on their fifth head coach since 2008 and will be hiring a sixth this offseason. In that time they've burned through at least five quarterbacks (JaMarcus Russell, Jason Campbell, Carson Palmer, Terrelle Pryor and Matt McGloin). They may have found their QB of the future but it's taken around 11 years, eight coaches and numerous other QBs to get there.

-New York has a coach who has been under fire for a few seasons and is allegedly resigned to his fate of being fired after this season. This team was in back-to-back AFC Championship games not that long ago and had a young, promising QB, before it all went to hell with him and they drafted another. Now they are fed up with the second QB and going back to square one. The Jets have been the poster child of poor management, decision making and quarterback development over recent years.

Each of these teams has elements that compare similarly with the Bears. While the Bears have been skirting by with seven or eight wins most of the time, they've finally dropped down to a level not far from these other teams.

The Kromer news just made me drop my head into my hands and think "Yep, my favorite team is officially closer to the Jets and Washington than it is to Green Bay and New England."

Time for Halas Hall to start over because it's an ugly, ugly mess right now.