The Chicago Bear Quarterback Curse

It's been a long time since Sid Luckman flung the ball around the field for the Chicago Bears. It's been a long time since the Bears had even one quality quarterback.

But believe it or not, at one time the Bears depth at Quarterback was the envy of the league. The Three Ls: Luckman, Lujack, and Layne. A legendary depth chart seldom rivaled...but soon gone.

Luckman was wrapping up a Hall of Fame career in which the Bears dominated the NFL during the war years. Johnny Lujack was one of the best young football players in the land. The first of the great quarterbacks from Western Pennsylvania, Lujack had won the Heisman at Notre Dame and three national championships in a career interrupted by service in World War II. The third L was the lanky, tough Texan Bobby Layne who Halas had lured away from the Baltimore Colts with promises of a great future in Chicago.

It was 1948.

It had been an incredibly successful but brutal run through the 1940s for Luckman: four championships, an MVP, the NFL's first 400 yard passing game coupled with a seven TD passing game.

But Luckman was beaten up by the physical game of the forties. It was soon time to go play punchball on the streets of Brooklyn with a young, chattering Al Michaels. The pipeline providing Brooklyn-born, Columbia-educated, German Jewish quarterbacks slammed shut when Luckman retired in 1950. But the Bears had depth didn't they?

Johnny Lujack was tough and played defense too. His open field tackle of Army's "Doc" Blanchard had preserved Notre Dame's national title. So sitting behind Luckman, Lujack played defense his first year in the pros and he played it well making All-Pro as a rookie. But it was hard on his battered body, which had held up playing several sports at Notre Dame and through his Navy stint. It was whispered he had taken a bad shot on his throwing shoulder and damaged his knees playing recklessly on defense.

Taking over for the aging Luckman, Lujack had good years in '49 and '50. In '49 he threw for 23 TD passes, but the next year the shoulder still wasn't right and the knees were injured as he scrambled more to make up for his hurting throwing arm. The arm would never be the same and then the knees went.

And then Lujack went.

Johnny Lujack was done way too soon, his brusied, battered body only lasting four years in the NFL. But Bobby Layne the brash, boozing Texan still lingered. Didn't he?

All-SWC for four years and the hero of the massacre of Missouri in the '46 Cotton Bowl where he had scored all of Texas's points (two passing, four rushing, and four extra points), Layne was a legend in Texas. Halas, who Mike Ditka famously said threw nickels around like man holecovers, opened his pockets to pry Layne from the Colts and the grizzled owner promised a no-trade clause in the Texas star's contract. 

But Halas liked Lujack and thought Luckman still had some gas in the tank. Plus, Papa Bear especially liked money.

And it looked like a lot of his money was being spent on a wild Texas boy who loved the night life and was only going to sit behind the legendary Lujack. So the Papa Bear shipped Layne off to the New York Bulldogs, who soon were put to sleep, which sent Layne to the Bears' division rival the Detroit Lions and into Lion legend.

And Layne thrived, haunting the Bears and leading the Lions to three titles. When he retired from his Hall of Fame career Layne held the career records for both passes attempted and completed, as well as yards gained passing and passing touchdowns. His old friend Doak Walker said Bobby never lost a game; he just ran out of time. SI named Layne the toughest quarterback who ever lived...in 1995, long after Layne's end.

Bear Bryant's Old Kentucky Kicker Quaterback George Blanda was the Bears' quarterback for much of the fifties, and the fourth quarterback on the Triple L depth chart. But the Bears never won any Championships until '63 when they used a great defense and a less then exciting offense to nip the Giants.

It's been a barren, bad streak in Bear quarterback land. A sixty year dry spell  except for a brief, brutalized oasis named McMahon. Strange how a team can go decades lacking stability at such a key position.

It's whispered Layne cursed the Lions when they sent him to Pittsburgh to end his career. The Lions, Layne said, will never win again.

Then he finished his whiskey and grinned. Maybe he knew his Texas Mojo was strong and the Bears who betrayed him were cursed to be quarterback-less also. 

Or maybe it's not a Layne curse, but just bad Bear luck to be stuck with owners whose very DNA is linked to tightness, an inherited toughness untangling dimes from their tight pockets.

Perhaps it's just ill luck. A six decade run of it. If the Bears win the Bradshaw toss, a broken-down, bald Bradshaw is bouncing at a sleazy Cajun Bar where no one knows his name and not babbling on the boob tube. Some folks are lucky some teams are doomed.

But once the Bears had the three L's, Luckman, Lujack, and Layne and an offensive future ahead of them.

After all these years the offense has still been, well, mostly just offensive. Once, longing for the old L Bear magic or just drinking a bit much, Ditka snatched the legendary Rusty Lisch from a construction site to compete against the man he started ahead of at Notre Dame, Joe Montana. That brief shining Lisch moment against the hated Packers of Forrest lead to the Greg Landry era and the ultimate abandonment of Ditka's Plan L.

Forget the Ls.....that's to much to ask for in the era of Cade and Rex. No, don't be greedy or the Football Gods frown.

George Blanda, the Bears nation turns its lonely eyes towards you.

Or maybe since the Bears have reopened their hallowed Vanderbilt football pipeline with this year's quarterback-less draft: Billy Wade, the Bears turn their lonely eyes towards you...