Final Reflections: Gaines Adams

As a Bears fan, I barely knew Gaines Adams.  Beyond doing draft profiles of him, I knew very little.  I knew that Chicago Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo had given Tampa Bay a second round pick in order to bring Adams into the organization in hopes that he would eventually turn into the kind of player that the Bears were looking for at the defensive end position.  Someone who could perhaps be the second coming of Richard Dent or Trace Armstrong and give them the kind of pressure on the line that they had been lacking.

Adams and his acquisition had drawn a lot of attention from local media as they felt that the trade for Adams would end up hurting the team much more than it would help them.  Adams would have been a fine player in Chicago had he gotten the chance to develop and we could have seen him act as a replacement (possibly) for Adewale Ogunleye who is a free agent after the end of the season.  Needless to say, Adams would have been used a lot in 2010 and could have had a big season.

Not since 1990 have the Bears lost a player who was on their active roster.  The last was defensive tackle Fred Washington who was killed in a car accident in December of 1990.  This writer still remembers when that happened as I was a senior in high school and felt pretty sad that such a young individual could lose their life like that.  

I now feel the same way about Adams.  It’s sad that Adams, a player who was on the verge of being a big star in Chicago would be taken away so suddenly.  It’s sad that a father and a son could be lost at such a young age.  That is the real tragedy in all of this, not that the Bears lost a player at a needed position but that a son lost a father, a father lost a son and the league lost one of it’s better players.

We should remember Adams for his being a fine player with good character and a lot of potential and not as a “mistake” by the Bears organization.  Had he been able to fulfill his career in Chicago it can be assured that he would have had a great impact on their defense.  He will be missed by many and it’s too bad he never got to realize his full potential.