My Friends,

 

Check out Barry Rozner’s excellent column in the Daily Herald on the will to win, what should be the simplest concept in sports. Hopefully it gets some attention up in Lake Forest. Do you think anybody up there reads anything besides their bank balance?

 

Harrison, Roethlisberger, Polamalu, Fitzgerald. To have that will you need a leader, and like Rozner implied that’s where the Bears have a glaring void, from the ownership on down.

 

On the field? I won’t even consider looking to an offense still trying to find its identity when tapping a leader. Thomas Jones would have been an excellent choice, but Angelo wanted Ced instead, and how did that work out? Matt Forte could become one, but it’s rare that a player so young assumes that role. Olin Kreutz has been more bombast than substance lately, blaming every QB for dropping snaps when he was the only common denominator. Maybe it’s Kyle Orton, but it’s tough to lead when the GM says you might be toting a clipboard. Devin Hester hasn’t even been told his role.

 

Is the leader on defense? Who?

 

Brian Urlacher? He’s a prima donna baby daddy who cares more about soaking the hose and his contract being enough than changing games. From my perspective, football has become more of a job to him than a game. You don’t hear those comparisons to Ray Lewis much these days, do you?

 

Tommie Harris? He showed flashes earlier in his career, but now he’s either banged up, getting suspended, making plays like the one in Atlanta where he pounced on a loose ball and inexplicably tossed it away before the whistle or acting like a huckster more than a football player. Guess what? His big deal is in the bank.

 

Nathan Vasher? Same thing. The Interceptor disappeared after he got his contract.

 

Mike Brown is the first guy I used to think of when the term “leader” was mentioned on the Bears, but he’s perennially broken and now seems destined to begin his life’s work.

 

Chris Harris could have been that guy, but Angelo sent the best safety he’s ever had on any of his Bears’ rosters away for a fifth round pick that became Zack Bowman, who brings promise, a stint on IR and little else.

 

Lance Briggs’ protracted contract squabble over the past three years left him to prove this past season that it wasn’t just about the money, like so many of his teammates, and he did. Maybe he’ll be the guy to step up and show how it’s done.

 

Peanut Tillman would be my choice. He’s physical, plays hurt, plays at a very high level, and whenever somebody thrusts a mike in front of him it’s worth listening to what he has to say. He’s funny and thoughtful, and most of his teammates could learn something by following his example.

 

                                    ***

 

That said, the Bears simply don’t look like they’re having much fun out there. Come to think of it, they didn’t look like they were having much fun during their Super Bowl run in 2006. We all know that’s a direct reflection of the coach.

 

When was the last time anybody, anybody, laughed at one of Lovie Smith’s press conferences? Or Dick Jauron’s, or Dave Wannstedt’s for that matter? Rozner is absolutely right to wonder if anybody in the Bears organization gets it. They hire these automaton coaches who install automaton schemes that ask their players to do a specific task in a certain way, and they’re screwed if anybody misses an assignment. The players are bored to tears repeating the same mundane routine day after day with absolutely no room for creativity, and woe to him who doesn’t place tab A into slot B in exactly the correct way.

 

Think back to the end of the Falcons game, when Marcus Hamilton didn’t drop quite deep enough and Matt Ryan lofted the ball over his head to Michael Jenkins heading out of bounds. That was in week six, and although Hamilton remains on the roster he never saw the field again. I could have drawn up a play in the dirt to defense that situation. The DBs and LBs man up on anybody who is eligible and don’t let them get out of bounds under any circumstances. But no, the sacred cover-2 scheme must be adhered to when the game is on the line, never mind the neophyte cornerback who had about two weeks to learn his assignment.

 

How about the Anthony Adams saga? Then again, now that the Bears front office sees that it took five years for the Steelers' James Harrison to crack the lineup, the learning curve at Halas Hall will get extended even further.

 

We complain about a lack of wide receivers and then watch as Earl Bennett can’t get on the field and Mark Bradley almost equals the top output on the Bears in a half season with the Chiefs. Brandon Lloyd caught everything they threw his way, including a couple that were every bit as acrobatic as the one Santonio Holmes grabbed to win a championship, and yet we read “he’s not in the Bears plans,” probably because his knee didn’t heal as fast as Smith thought it should, or was it that the Bears didn’t like his budding music career? There’s that creativity issue again. It wasn’t so long ago that the McCaskeys wouldn’t draft a guy with cornrows, was it?

 

It’s no wonder the Bears roster is littered with a bunch of guys who live for direct deposit.

 

LBF

2/3/2009