Question: “Don’t you miss all those questions about who’s playing quarterback, Coach?”
Lovie Smith: “Oh, I can’t wait for them. It was a part of every interview I did for so long.
“Kyle Orton, by the way, is doing a heck of a job behind the scenes. Let’s get that quarterback controversy going again.”
Kyle Orton came off the practice field on a sunny Friday afternoon, perspiration dripping into his beard.
I intercepted him to ask, “Kyle, wasn’t it like two years ago this week that you and the Bears beat the Lions in overtime?”
“Was it?” he asked back. “Your memory is better about things like that than mine.”
“Didn’t you throw a 54-yard pass to Mark Bradley that day?”
“Did I?” Orton replied.
Yes, you did.
As a matter of fact — stop me if this sounds familiar — Orton on that October day in 2005 took the Bears on a 99-yard touchdown drive that ended with a leaping catch by Muhsin Muhammad in the end zone.
Brian Griese a week ago led a 97-yard touchdown drive that ended with a leaping catch by Muhammad in the end zone.
A whole lot has happened to the Bears in between. I suppose that’s why a few gaps exist in their ex-quarterback’s memory of it all.
“It has been a long couple of years,” said Orton, a qualified pro quarterback who is ready, willing and able but will be inactive Sunday for his 27th Bears game in a row.
“I’m still happy here. I think I’ve got a future with this team. But I do know there’s a demand out there for quarterbacks who can play in this league, so who knows?”
Quarterback is not the panic-stricken, polarizing position in Chicago that it used to be.
The head coach even was able to have a tongue-in-cheek moment about it in his conference call with Detroit’s reporters, jokingly inviting a quarterback controversy to resurface.
Maybe later, coach. Best/worst we can come up with for the moment is this:
Is Donovan McNabb an option for 2008?
Or is the football in good hands with Griese for a while?
Is Rex Grossman coming back to be a backup or going off to a Buffalo or an Atlanta or an Arizona for a fresh start?
Or is there a college quarterback the Bears should snap up in the draft?
And where would any of this leave Orton, who is only 24? He isn’t blind to the way desperate NFL teams grasp at straws and give a shot to a green third-stringer or to a washed-up 43-year-old like Vinny Testaverde.
“I saw how long Brian Griese had to wait for a chance to get back on the field,” Orton said. “It’s hard to not play.”
Orton is in NFL limbo, so much so that even J.T. O’Sullivan has a better chance to play in Sunday’s game than he does.
O’Sullivan is the No. 2 to Jon Kitna at quarterback for Detroit. The Bears released him July 7, and he signed three days later with the Lions.
After a comment by Kitna a few days ago about how much he hates to play an opponent twice in one season, Lions offensive coordinator Mike Martz couldn’t resist kidding Kitna this way: “OK, we’re just going to play J.T. this week.”
At least the 28-year-old O’Sullivan got into a game this season, throwing his first NFL touchdown pass. Orton won’t play unless both Griese and Grossman can’t.
Smith gave the ball to Griese for the Sept. 30 game in Detroit, the veteran’s first start as a Bear.
“Of course his first start wasn’t exactly how we envisioned it,” Smith said after Friday’s practice, ruing the interceptions that were costly in a 37-27 loss. “But he really has made progress.”
It wasn’t a snap decision to bench Grossman, a quarterback who had steered the Bears to a Super Bowl.
It also wasn’t the first hard call Smith had to make. Orton was in the midst of an eight-game winning streak on Oct. 30, 2005, when he and the Bears beat the Lions 19-13 on a Charles Tillman interception in overtime.
Orton was a player then — a player who played.
He threw for more than 9,300 yards at Purdue. He then became the first Bears rookie to start a season opener at quarterback in more than 50 years.
But not only has Orton not been in a game for the two NFL seasons since, he hasn’t been activated.
Football isn’t a sport like baseball or basketball where a bench guy can grab a little playing time in a one-sided victory or defeat.
“Do your starting days seem a long time ago?” I asked him.
“A real long time ago,” Orton said. “My time will come. I still believe that.”
Until then, no one needs to ask the coach who his quarterback is, so we don’t.
Maybe next year?
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mikedowney@tribune.com
