Possessing no handy evidence to ensure a future any brighter than the present, the Bears simply proceed as if it doesn’t exist.
“There’s no such thing as the 1998 Bears,” offensive lineman Andy Heck says. “For many guys here, there won’t be a 1998. Even if we were a playoff team, we’d be looking at 30 percent new players next year. The face of the team changes every year–that’s just the way it is. So it would be ridiculous to all of a sudden start developing that team now. That’s for this off-season.”
The opinion is shared not just by Heck’s teammates, but in some ways by his coach.
“I don’t look at next year because you have to live in the present or you wouldn’t be able to do a good job preparing for this week,” Dave Wannstedt says. “We’re looking at it as, `Yeah, we’re in a tough situation, we’re not going to the playoffs, but we can win a lot of games here down the stretch.’ That’s how we have to approach it.”
For now, that may help team morale. But what about next season? Bears President Michael McCaskey and personnel vice president Mark Hatley and his expanded staff must decide whether to move forward by relying on the club’s old standby–the college draft–or develop a new philosophy.
Support for the former is weak. Just one No. 1 draft choice, cornerback Walt Harris, is a probable starter this week, and the entire draft class of 1997 has been glaringly unproductive.
In this decade, the Bears have passed on such free agents as receiver Cris Carter, quarterback Warren Moon, receiver Andre Rison (all of whom had character issues) and defensive end Reggie White. The argument: They were building the team’s foundation and could not justify spending $4 million a year on one player.
Then, however, they failed to start young players such as Curtis Conway, Todd Perry, Carl Simpson and James Williams.
With a free-agent class coming up that is expected to include such defensive linemen as Dana Stubblefield, Eric Swann, John Randle, Chester McGlocton and Neil Smith, some Bears veterans are urging management to play to win now, and then look for experience in the off-season.
“I’d like to see a team develop more through free agency because you have guys who have proven themselves in the league,” defensive tackle Jim Flanigan says. “Even if a guy is a great college player, it doesn’t guarantee he’s going to be a good pro.”
Flanigan becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. The Bears say they want to re-sign him.
They also say they use up as much money under the salary cap as any other team, but that does not always tell the whole story. In a move they are still paying for, the team lost receiver Jeff Graham to free agency. The New York Jets got him with an offer comparable to the Bears’–three years, $1.8 million–but threw in a $2 million signing bonus that dwarfed the Bears’ $600,000 offer.
Less than a year later they ended up giving Simpson a $900,000 signing bonus to use up leftover cap money they otherwise would have lost.
“A lot of how we do in the future is going to fall on McCaskey,” tackle James Williams says. “He has to be willing to spend some of his money, and spend it in the right way. You have to.”
The Bears did shell out hefty contracts to linebacker Bryan Cox and defensive end Alonzo Spellman, matching Jacksonville’s offer–$11.6 million over four years, $4 million signing bonus–to Spellman. And at the time of Cox’s deal–four years, $13.3 million, $5 million signing bonus–it was thought to be the only way to keep him from visiting Green Bay and St. Louis, the next stops on his free-agent tour.
Cox, coincidentally, makes a good argument for not spending a lot of money on one or two free agents.
“Then if you get a couple of injuries, you have to play unproven, untested rookies behind that player,” Cox says. “You’re going to keep the young guy as opposed to the veteran player who was solid because of economics. That’s why you often see bad football–because of salary-cap issues.”
Clearly, the Spellman decision has backfired. “I don’t think we need to concentrate on putting a lot of money on one position,” Williams says. “I think it would be better for us if we could split it up–get a couple of good players instead of trying to get just that one player to change the whole defense. Why not try to get three or four players who don’t cost as much but play with a good deal of aggressiveness and ability?”
Hatley, who hopes to benefit from a larger personnel and scouting staff than former personnel man Rod Graves had, said he would first try to fill needs through the free-agent market.
“First you evaluate the unrestricted players and find what area is strong–offensive tackles, tight ends, etc.,” he said. “Then you see what areas are strong in the draft. If there are good wideouts, for example, among the unrestricted guys and not in the draft, then we’d probably be focused more on free agents. We would try to get that solved first so we’re not reaching in the draft.”
Before winning his first Super Bowl in his third year with the San Francisco 49ers (after a 6-10 season), Bill Walsh acquired players at the end of their careers such as Jack “Hacksaw” Reynolds, Fred Dean and Charle Young. Would the Bears try that?
Williams is among many players who wish they would. “Over the years they’ve tried turning this into a young team, getting rid of all the old crafty veterans,” he says. “But I think every team needs a few of those to help the young guys out, to point them in the right direction. That might be something we’re missing.”
But Wannstedt disagrees. “The salary cap is going to limit you to do so much in free agency, and the backbone of your team has to be the draft because those are the guys who are going to play,” he says. “You have to get draft picks to perform well because they’re the guys who are going to perform within the dollar number that’s going to work.”
Defensive coordinator Bob Slowik points out that it depends on where the Bears are in their “Super Bowl timeline” and half-jokes, “I don’t care where we get ’em as long as they’re players.”
That is the bottom line.
“I don’t think our philosophy has changed,” Wannstedt says. “But with Mark here and his experience in the pro end of it, I think we’ll do a lot better job in all areas.”
