More than once since Jonathan Quinn signed a free-agent contract with the Bears last March, teammates and coaches have used the example of Kurt Warner to illustrate how anonymous backup quarterbacks sometimes only need one chance.
Now facing circumstances eerily similar to those Warner faced in 1999, Quinn got the chance Monday for which he had prepared seven NFL seasons.
“Nobody wants it to be due to injury, and I surely didn’t, but that’s the hand I’m dealt,” the 29-year-old Quinn said.
Just as Warner replaced Trent Green for the St. Louis Rams after Green tore the ACL in his right knee in the exhibition finale, Quinn took over for Rex Grossman after Grossman suffered the same injury Sunday in a 27-22 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
Grossman will undergo surgery in two weeks and faces seven to 10 months of rehabilitation, but vowed to return in time for training camp.
By then, Quinn may be coming off an unbelievable season as a starter or may be just a memory.
Optimistic Bears coaches sound as committed to Quinn as they did to Grossman. But Monday night’s signing of quarterback Chad Hutchinson to a two-year contract worth roughly $900,000 made it easy to see how competition at the position could commence by midseason if Quinn struggles.
General manager Jerry Angelo has liked Hutchinson since being one of just a handful of NFL personnel still intrigued by the former Stanford quarterback back in November 2001, when Hutchinson was a Triple-A pitcher in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization. Hutchinson turned to football after toiling four years in mostly the minor leagues, and the Bears were the first NFL team to give him a private workout.
But Hutchinson sought a hefty signing bonus the Bears were unwilling to meet. He instead signed a seven-year deal with the Cowboys that included $3.1 million up front. He was thrust into action as a starter for nine games in 2002, but when Bill Parcells took over last year, Hutchinson went from competing for a starting spot to charting plays.
He was cut last summer despite having a guaranteed $370,000 contract and enjoying a fine season for the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe that ended a game early due to a shoulder injury.
Angelo never forgot the impression Hutchinson made on him during that visit to Halas Hall and toyed with the idea of bringing him to Chicago, but never had the need with Grossman entrenched for years to come.
Until Monday, that is, when news the Bears needed a quarterback spread so quickly that even journeyman Jeff George called Halas Hall in case there was interest.
There wasn’t.
So now the 6-foot-5-inch, 235-pound Hutchinson will provide the insurance the Bears needed after their latest disaster, providing Hutchinson’s shoulder passes the physical Tuesday. He was scheduled to arrive Monday night in Chicago after flying in from his hometown near San Diego.
Coach Lovie Smith expected Hutchinson to start learning the offense at practice Wednesday, and team officials said the prospect of working again with quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson, who was on the Cowboys’ coaching staff in 2002, excited Hutchinson.
“I would think it’d be good to have another veteran on the sidelines,” Quinn said. “I’d think that would be a positive. The offense is definitely high-volume and hard to come in and learn in a week, hard to digest.”
Speaking of things hard to stomach, the day began with Grossman showing the moxie that already has become his trademark in six NFL starts as he discussed his arduous road back.
Grossman managed to laugh through the pain when he noted that if he was going to go out, scoring a touchdown on the final play was the way to do it. At the end of that 6-yard touchdown run, Grossman said his foot stuck in the Metrodome turf so solidly that the rest of his body “just went.”
He knew before he hit the ground how serious the injury was.
“I could feel my femur smashed down into my tibia and then it just kind of almost dislocated,” he said. “As soon as I planted, I knew instantly. It’s a terrible feeling.”
Like Quinn, Grossman takes solace in the Trent Green-Kurt Warner example five years ago. Green returned after surgery to full strength and Pro Bowl stardom with the Kansas City Chiefs, the injury now just a bad memory.
“Doctors say 100 percent recovery [and] ACL surgeries are pretty common,” Grossman said. “A lot of quarterbacks have them and come back, receivers have them and come back. They say I won’t even know I did it after a while.”
It will be as hard for Grossman to watch as it will be for his team to function without him.
“But we do have to move on,” Smith said. “You don’t want it to happen, but things like this do happen.”
