Urlacher believes Bears are cursed

Brian Urlacher has been pretty outspoken with his criticism of the team since his unceremonious departure following the 2012 season.

Urlacher has pulled no punches against former general manager Phil Emery and the direction that he took the team. In the end, Urlacher proved to be right because Emery lasted just three seasons before being ousted.

The former middle linebacker joined the CBSSports radio show Tiki and Tierney last week to discuss, among other things, the problems with his former team.

He believes that the Bears’ problems began when they fired Lovie Smith following the 2012 season, bringing in what he calls, a curse.

From Yahoo Sports via Pro-Football Talk:

“I like to say it’s the Lovie Curse,” Urlacher said. “Because since he left, (the Bears have struggled). He got fired being 10-6. I think they fire him either way. Even if we go to the playoffs, I think they fire him. I don’t think the GM (Phil Emery) liked the way he coached the football team.

“The guy’s a winner. I love playing for him. I don’t know what the identity of that team is. They sign (Mike) Glennon, then they draft a kid No. 2 (Mitchell Trubisky). I don’t know what (they’re doing). It’s confusing.”

Obviously, Urlacher’s criticism doesn’t end with the Emery era, as he goes on to say what the current regime is doing is unclear.

His whole segment can be found here (The segment is broken out into it’s own audio).

While some of his criticism may be valid, it’s hard to call this a “curse.” Lovie hadn’t brought the Bears to a playoff berth in two seasons prior to being fired and while the decisions made after he left certainly exacerbated their issues, it’s hardly a curse.

Urlacher did go on to say that he is hopeful that rookie Mitch Trubisky will be the guy to turn it around.

“I hope this kid is unbelievable,” Urlacher said. “I hope Mitch Trubisky is the best quarterback of all time. He looks like a stud. He’s 6-2, 6-3, put together, good-looking kid, he seems really nice – I hope they do really well. Their defense is going to be good this year. They were good last year and they had so many young guys play that it’s only going to help them this year.”

The last thing that might raise some eyebrows from the interview is Urlacher defends Jay Cutler. Urlacher never seemed to embrace the former quarterback but he offered defense for his teammate.

The media always made him worse than he was, because he was on the sideline making those faces or whatever...We had a good locker room, anyone would have fit in.

Do you think the Bears are actually cursed? Or just incompetent? Are things going to turnaround in the near future?