Future shock
Here’s one question posed to Erik Kramer, quarterback of the Once-Proud Franchise Formerly Known as the Bears and future free agent:
Would Dave Wannstedt’s staying as head coach make you more or less likely to want to return?
“I think if Dave comes back. . . . I don’t know. A lot of things would have to . . . I’d probably have to hear where this team’s going to go. I guess it does matter who’s the head coach, but I’d have to see what they have in store.”
Of course, any quarterback who saw the way the head coach handled the quarterbacks this season would have the same reaction.
Money talks
One of the questions Kramer has is a question every Bears fan should have about the commitment of the franchise, and that is “how willing they are to pay cash for players in a signing bonus that’ll help you get around the hard cap.”
That’s how Dallas and San Francisco did it: Paying big signing bonuses to more than one or two players the way the Bears seem to do it.
Age-old question
Kramer believes he has three to five good years left, and his career has been such that he hasn’t taken as many snaps as most 33-year-old quarterbacks. In other words, he has young X-rays.
“I feel really good,” Kramer said. “Sometimes you guys multiply years like they’re dog years.”
Family ties
Kramer said he wants to finish his career in Chicago and has talked to Wannstedt and personnel veep Mark Hatley about talking about exactly that after the season.
“My wife loves it here,” Kramer said. “My son loves Chicago and the fact that his dad plays for the Bears. This is the first year really where he has been in tune with the season and become a football fanatic. He has kind of lived and died with it every Sunday.”
Nice timing.
“He has learned a little humility,” Kramer said. “Hopefully next year we can turn it around and he can start strutting his stuff a little bit.”
Overheard
Safety Marlon Forbes, walking by as Bears offensive lineman Todd Burger was about to be interviewed by WFLD-Ch. 32: “Oh, boy, get the censor ready.”
A no-comment comment
Bryan Cox did his paid taped gig for Channel 32 Wednesday, but nothing else, reaffirming he wouldn’t talk to the media, but of course he talked to the media about why.
“I’m being a media whore,” Cox said. “As long as I’m going to be in Chicago, it’ll be that way. You ain’t gonna hear nothing from me in training camp, you ain’t gonna hear nothing from me no more. I put gas on the car and blew it up.”
Long division
As if the Blackhawks aren’t drawing that well anyway, but now the NHL realigns and moves long-time Original Six rival Toronto out of the Central Division, with the Dallas (nee Minnesota) Stars to follow.
Two rivals, two draws, too bad.
That not only tells you Hawks President Bill Wirtz, the former chairman of the board of governors, has lost clout, but payback for 20 years of getting whatever he wanted is coming fast and often.
Unlike his team’s offense.
Changing channels
The Vancouver Canucks announced they will televise four home games on pay-per-view, $34.95 for the package, $9.95 a game.
You watch, this is how Wirtz will get around to doing it.
Quotable
Bears lineman Todd Burger, on the growing number of no-shows at Soldier Field: “The way things have been going, that’s just 20,000 less people booing us.”
