Matt Forte Spills the Tea, Virtual Offseason Programs, the Emery Era, and Other Bears Bullets

April 20, 2020, by Luis Medina Chicago Bears

I woke up this morning wanting more from “The Last Dance” because two hours simply wasn’t enough.

Is it next Sunday yet?

• Chicago’s basketball team wasn’t the only one in town brought down by front-office follies:

Having played in Chicago for almost a decade this seems to be our Achilles heel! https://t.co/q89MA37h8E

— Matt Forte (@MattForte22) April 20, 2020

Y’all asking for details so here’s just a few examples.Lovie wins 10 games but gets fired. New GM (Emery) comes in and basically tried to get rid of the entire (lovie Tampa 2 def.) The way 54 was treated at the end of his career along with 55 and 33. So I knew I was just a number

— Matt Forte (@MattForte22) April 20, 2020

Jerry lied to me in camp 2011. Told my agent and I he’d negotiate a new deal in “good faith” lol I ended up playing under rookie deal 600k making the pro bowl but season ended with MCL sprain while the punter made 4.5M. #facts https://t.co/QPQh4Q7GKI

— Matt Forte (@MattForte22) April 20, 2020

https://twitter.com/thomasqjones/status/1252089030742888449?s=20

• Nothing like a documentary shedding light on how egos at the top can bring down even the mightiest dynasties to remind us of how things fell apart with recent Bears teams. Who doesn’t love peering into the dark business end of the sports world?

• At least Jones has this perspective:

Not torching Jerry my brother. Jerry Angelo gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to play for the Bears in 2004. Some of the best times and memories of my life. I could never be mad at him for that. It's just the ugly part of the NFL. All things come to an end. #BearDown https://t.co/93Mes6YqhF

— Thomas Q. Jones (@thomasqjones) April 20, 2020

• Meanwhile, the Phil Emery era was a clusterchuck. He fired Lovie Smith after a 10-win season that concluded his run as the third-most successful coach in franchise history (behind George Halas and Mike Ditka), hired Marc Trestman over reigning Coach of the Year winner Bruce Arians, drafted Shea McClellin, gave Jay Cutler a ridiculous sum of money in an extension, jettisoned Julius Peppers for the twilight years of Jared Allen (who didn’t even fit the defensive scheme), essentially pushed Brian Urlacher out the door … I think you get the point.

• Silver linings? Well, there are two. One is that Emery also drafted Alshon Jeffery, Kyle Long, Charles Leno Jr., and Kyle Fuller. Each of those four made a Pro Bowl as a member of the Bears. Four Pro Bowlers drafted in a three-year stretch isn’t bad. For what it’s worth, Ryan Pace has drafted five Pro Bowlers (Mitch Trubisky, Eddie Jackson, Tarik Cohen, Cody Whitehair, Jordan Howard) in his five years running the show.

• I couldn’t get through the first two episodes of “The Last Dance” without drawing a comparison between Mitch Trubisky and Sam Bowie. It hurts to think about it. Is what we’re experiencing now as Bears fans penance for having lived through the Jordan era with the Bulls? A headline from January 26, 2017: Deshaun Watson’s Coach Tells Teams at the Top of the Draft Not to Pass on Michael Jordan

• WELP. I guess we can’t say that we weren’t fairly warned.

• Onward! The Bears are back in business:

The NFL teams starting their virtual offseason programs today: The #Falcons, the #Bills, the #Panthers, the #Bears, the #Browns, the #Cowboys, the #Colts, the #Chiefs, the #Chargers, the #Patriots, the #Giants, and the #Redskins. The rest wait a week.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 20, 2020

• The Bears are among the 12 teams opening their virtual offseason workout plans. It is a three-week program that will feature online classroom sessions and virtual training. ESPN’s Dan Graziano has a larger scope of what this entails in his breakdown of the voluntary offseason home workout plan.

• If you’re looking for exercise and fitness gear to help out at home, here’s the big section at Amazon. #ad

• What an image: