NEWSLETTER
Martellus Bennett was one of my favorite Bears for a short period of time. A two-way tight end who could run routes, catch passes, chip in as a blocker, and chirp with the best of them checked a lot of my fan boxes.
And then, I saw this thread from the 10-year pro and I felt those feelings come back. Because Bennett shredding Chicago Bears management after the team’s 31-24 loss to the Detroit Lions felt so relatable. So much so that I felt it necessary to re-share it here (along with some of my own commentary since we’re having a public airing of grievances ahead of the holiday season):
The Bears have been hesitant to embrace modern football on so many levels that we celebrate the smallest signs of organizational growth. For instance, hiring Ian Cunningham as the team’s first-ever assistant general manager. Or creating a Director of High Performance position to work with the athletic training staff. Heck, hiring a team president who wasn’t part of the family (or extended family) felt like a major change of direction — even though high-functioning teams have been doing this for years.
Nothing encapsulates the Bears’ reluctance to step out of black-and-white and into color like John Fox and Ryan Pace spearheading the modernization of Halas Hall. Safety Eddie Jackson saying returning to a refurbished Halas Hall was kin to going back to Alabama says so much about how advanced things are for the Crimson Tide and spoke volumes for how behind the times the Bears were.
I don’t know if owners are ever OK with losing, but Bennett speaks to something regarding ownership’s lack of vision and its insistence on selling the past. That has been a talking point for years. Don’t get me wrong. I love a nostalgia pull as much as the next guy. But I also know that nostalgia drives aren’t a sustainable, long-term formula.
Bennett is right to point out how the team doesn’t protect its players publicly. Memories of the organization championing its social media prowess while quarterback Jay Cutler was being shredded online as he lingered awkwardly because the Bears were playing coy about his injury status in the 2011 NFC Championship Game popped up when I read that tweet. But it goes beyond that moment. Remember how the Bears refused to address a report of Matt Nagy’s pending firing ahead of the team’s Thanksgiving game? A charter franchise leaving its head coach hanging was unbecoming, to say the least. But it captured how out of touch the organization was with handling situations like this one.
Who are the Bears of tomorrow? Well, they’re the Bears of yesteryear. Look no further than the head coach. It is tough to look at Matt Eberflus and not think his hire wasn’t due, in part, to the franchise’s pull to the Lovie Smith days. Lovie was the only coach of the franchise’s modern era to have some level of sustained success. Eberflus using Smith’s defensive scheme (despite the modern NFL’s ability to bust the soft spots in the Tampa-2 with ease when it isn’t mixed with other wrinkles), terminology, and carrying along stoically probably made ownership feel like he was a safe hire who harkens back to the olden days.
The Bears of tomorrow are the Bears of yesteryear. And they’ll always be that until something changes in this franchise’s core.
Martellus Bennett makes good points (And I hope the Bears are taking notes)
I love that Bennett wraps this up with a tweet about how Chicago is a great city to play in. And I love it more that he brings up this franchise’s lack of identity:
I have lost count of how many different identity crises the Bears have had over the years. But there have been a bunch recently, which helps drive home Bennett’s grander points. The Bears’ identity is in its past. And the franchise’s failure to branch out isn’t going to help build the brand for the future. I will say this, I think the youth (and others) want to connect with Justin Fields as the guy who leads this franchise into a new era. But it is hard to make that connection when a franchise that has been defense first continues to build that way despite having a quarterback with skills worth building around.
Heck, even when they built around Jay Cutler, the Bears initially thrust Devin Hester — a cornerback by trade and return ace by speciality — into the WR1 role that he had never played before. These are the types of things organizations stuck in 1986 do. And they’ll continue to do it until someone puts an end to the madness.
In the end, Martellus Bennett makes a lot of good points. And it brings me back to something I wrote in January 2022:
At some point, I’d like if the Bears were to act as if there was more than just one way to win football. Perhaps attack things in a more modern approach. Don’t get me wrong. Forming an identity and even reaching back to what made you you isn’t the worst option. Putting an emphasis on running the ball, stopping the run, pressuring the quarterback plays in any era. But it can’t stop there. Using those principles as a foundation and growing from that point on is the move. No one ever got anywhere worth going by turning back the clock. Except when it comes to Mitchell and Ness throwback jerseys. The classics are classic for a reason.
The Bears were in the midst of yet another identity crisis then and still find themselves in one now. Enough is enough. And it is time for some real change. If it happens, I hope we can circle back to Bennett’s tweets for helping shine some light on these long-standing issues.
