Buy the ticket, take the ride

If you can't get excited about Caleb Williams, you've got problems

Buy the ticket, take the ride

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There are 19 days before the Bears season starts and I can tell you gang, that a lot of Bears fans are not ready. And it’s really not a surprise. If you were born after the movie releases of such cinematic classics as Weekend at Bernie’s, Uncle Buck or Fletch Lives1, you have never seen the Bears sport a real quarterback.

The Bears traded Jim McMahon to the San Diego Chargers 35 years ago last Sunday. They got a conditional draft pick in return for the only Bears quarterback to ever moon a helicopter or win a Super Bowl. That pick ended up being a second rounder and the Bears used it on Fred Washington, a defensive tackle from TCU. Fred played in 11 games as a rookie before he and a passenger in his car were killed on December 21, 1990 trying to cut down a Christmas tree by driving Fred’s car through it as fast as they could.

Since McMahon the Bears have used a few different starting quarterbacks. If you’ve watched a national broadcast of a Bears game at any point in the last three and a half decades you can probably recite the list from memory. But you always forget one or two. They are probably Craig Krenzel or Henry Burris. But only because nobody can ever forget Moses Moreno or Rick Mirer.2

There were flashes of competence. Erik Kramer in 1995, Jay Cutler in…ehh, maybe 2011 before he broke his thumb tackling Chargers’ DB Antoine Cason after throwing a pick right to him in a 31-20 win? Honestly, it’s really hard to pick Jay’s “good” seasons considering the years he threw for the most yards (3,666 in 2009 and 3,812 in 2014) he led the NFL in interceptions. He also led the league in getting sacked (52 times) in 2009.