Eleven months have passed since doctors questioned whether Erik Kramer ever would play football again. On Wednesday, he reassumed his position as starting quarterback of the Bears and said he never stopped believing it was his job all along.
“In this game, the coaches and organization can set things up the way they’d like to see them work out, but at a certain point, they’re going to have to play who they think is most capable,” said Kramer, who missed the last 12 games of the ’96 season after herniating two cervical discs in his neck. “Not that Rick (Mirer) has done anything wrong because he has really come along well and he has a lot of tools, a lot of talent and he’s going to develop nicely into this system. But I just think Dave (Wannstedt) had a gut feeling.”
Wannstedt might have been the last coach in the NFL to name his starting quarterback when he chose Kramer over Mirer a week and a half before the Bears open at Green Bay, Sept. 1, but it turned out to be an easy decision, he said.
“Erik came in healthy and from Day 1 he’s been throwing the ball well,” Wannstedt said. “(But) the bottom line is he’s probably the most comfortable right now with what we’re doing because he’s been in the system three years. He brings a little bit of leadership to the offense, which we need right now . . . and that’s how the decision was made.”
Wannstedt said it is now Kramer’s job to lose.
“I didn’t want this just to be for the Green Bay game,” Kramer said. “That’s not the mind frame that I want to go into the game with. So that’s how I look at it. I’m back, I’m the quarterback of the Bears and that’s how I see it leading into this season and the future.
“People thought I was crazy coming back and coming back to Chicago. I had better offers to go other places. But I knew in my heart this is where I wanted to be.”
