Chicago Bears: These quarterbacks have made us who we are

Yet another player I couldn’t find a picture for as a Bear, and maybe they’re just trying to save me from myself. I guess the Bears figured they went to the Steelers scrapheap before with Jim Miller, so why not try again with Kordell Stewart?

This was also the height of the John Shoop as offensive coordinator era, who was never going to take advantage of whatever skills they were under the impression Stewart had. A personal favorite was during a game in the Metrodome. Shoop had Stewart run a play-action to the running back, and then attempt a quarterback draw right into the linebackers he had just drawn forward with the fake.

(Time out … that above headline could not be more hilarious).

Another Shoop/Stewart special was a play-fake and then attempt to hit the back with a pass, right after you’d drawn at least one linebacker to him. Watching a Shoop offense led by Stewart had the same effect as huffing paint without any of the whimsy.

Shoop was the offensive coordinator incarnation of the immobile and weak-armed quarterbacks the Bears loved so. I’m sure he was under the impression that plays were not allowed to gain more than eight yards. Not that it mattered, the Bears never supplied him with a player who could make a play over eight yards.

Nothing made the Bears organization and its fans weaker in the knees than a three-yard dive over the right guard they had met at the bar the previous Thursday.