Do the Bears Need a New QB?

Short answer: no. 

I feel the need to discuss the Bears quarterback situation in more detail. Those of you who read my "Bears Draft Needs" article would notice that I didn’t mention the drafting of a young quarterback.

There’s a misconception amongst Chicago fans that all we need is to get a good quarterback. While a consistent, mistake free passer is optimal, a team needs more than that to succeed.

No quarterback, whether drafted or acquired via free agency, can come into training camp and become the franchise QB for the Chicago Bears. 

Now people (read: idiots) will say things like, “Look at Atlanta and Baltimore. They drafted a quarterback and they’re winning. Why can’t we have that?” Well, it takes more than a quarterback to change a team, and while both Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco have played well in their respective roles, they’re an important part of a bigger picture.

Here’s a taste of what the Falcons and Ravens did to help turn their teams around.

Atlanta

- Hired a new head coach, Mike Smith.

- Signed a franchise running back, Michael Turner (finished second in rushing).

- Had receivers who could get open and catch balls.

- Drafted Matt Ryan (limited turnovers and stayed healthy).

- They had a pass rush—John Abraham had 16.5 sacks.

Baltimore

- Hired a new coach, John Harbaugh.

- Two running backs rushed for 650+ yards (Willis McGahee and Le'Ron McClain).

- Featured a top-ranked defense who didn’t just sit around saying, “we can play better.”

- Drafted Joe Flacco, who started slow but thanks to the defense didn’t have to win every game for his team.

As you can see, there are a few things that needed to happen in order to turn things around. Quite frankly Kyle Orton showed, before his injury, that he’s capable of being the mistake-limiting passer the Bears need.

However, after the injury he was even more limited in his mobility and wasn’t able to hit the open receiver. To put it plainly, he didn’t play well, but here’s where a team needs to come together and make up for its own shortcomings, which didn’t happen.

The offensive line allowed more pressure to be put on Orton and limited the effectiveness of Matt Forte. Bears receivers couldn’t get open consistently (Devin Hester, which means that he’s drawing double teams, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), and when they did get open, they dropped the ball (Rashied Davis, Marty Booker).

Add to that the utter lack of a pass rush (Tommie Harris is the leader of that line and shoulders most of the blame) and a banged-up secondary, and no quarterback could play well enough to overcome those odds.

Case in point, Drew Brees: He played phenomenally all season, but his team didn’t rise to the occasion, and they missed the playoffs. Jay Cutler is another good example—voted into the Pro Bowl, but because his team couldn’t stop opposing teams from scoring, the Broncos missed the playoffs. 

Both young quarterbacks (Flacco, Ryan) and old quarterbacks (Gus Frerotte, Kerry Collins) played smart enough to help their teams win. However, with all of those teams you can see areas where the Bears need to improve—better offensive line play, a pass rush, sure-handed receivers, and then you can talk about the quarterback. 

The Bears have the players to become a complete team; they just need to show it.

Getting the attitude of “we can play better” to actually playing better will depend on the coaching staff lighting a fire under the entire team from the outset of training camp.