In Alaska, where I recently visited, it’s hard not to notice the bears. Black bears, grizzly bears, Kodiak bears, Chicago Bears. Yes, even 2,912 miles from their Bourbonnais, Ill., training camp, word reaches a traveler that this simply has to be the Bears’ year.
That sleek, smart, ball hawk of a safety — how did he ever slip to the sixth round of the draft? And this fierce, freakishly quick guard with muscles on his muscles — he might be an undrafted free agent, but just try keeping him off the field.
Every August, the Bears seem to resemble the ’78 Steelers. How can they possibly find playing time for all these stars they have discovered? Skeptics who question a roster that might require help from a sixth-round draft pick or an undrafted free agent are hushed, sternly, like a restless youngster talking in church. Then the team goes 9-7, 8-8 or 7-9; mistakes are acknowledged; a coach or two is sacrificed; the ball-hawking safety hooks on in the Arena League, and come August, there’s another sixth-rounder in camp who resembles Ronnie Lott, only bigger and faster.
Being a Bears fan entails believing that 1985 is just around the corner. But the distance this year’s leap of faith must cover is more reasonable — isn’t it?
Lovie Smith has revamped his coaching staff. An atypically ambitious free-agent plunge landed Julius Peppers, a defensive end so talented and dominant that he can replace the great Brian Urlacher as the centerpiece of the defense before he has played a down. Jay Cutler, last year’s messiah as the first franchise quarterback since Sid Luckman, has had time to absorb Chicago’s peculiarities and will be less prone to complete passes to the other team.
Most important, Mike Martz is in the house. He’s the new offensive coordinator, the most anticipated newcomer since, well, Cutler, and don’t they form an intriguing power couple.
It’s rare that the arrival of a coach elicits such fanfare, never mind an assistant coach. But Martz is no ordinary assistant. He gained offensive-guru stature as maestro of the Greatest Show on Turf in St. Louis, winning one Super Bowl as offensive coordinator and losing one as head coach while transforming Kurt Warner from a Hy-Vee shelf stocker into a Hall of Fame quarterback.
Martz has a zealot’s belief in the efficacy of his system and a prickly disdain for those who would question it, including Mike Singletary, a Hall of Fame Bear who was Martz’s boss at his last coaching job, in San Francisco, where they know and appreciate offense. His system worked less well there than it had in St. Louis, and only slightly better than it had in Detroit, prompting skeptics to note the absence of Warner and Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce and Marshall Faulk and wonder if it was the talent that made the scheme and not the other way around.
Good question. There was a time when the West Coast offense was the religion of choice in the N.F.L., and more than a dozen teams converted to some version of it after Bill Walsh unveiled it in San Francisco nearly 30 years ago. Some succeeded, many failed. It always seemed to work best with Joe Montana or Steve Young throwing to Jerry Rice and John Taylor and Roger Craig running the ball.
Martz’s weaponry starts with Cutler throwing to Devin Aromashodu and Devin Hester, with Matt Forte running. Not sure there’s a Pro Bowl component in the group, but it’s surely a step up from Terry Shea calling the shots for Jonathan Quinn. And it’s a huge departure for a team whose personality was always derived from the defensive side of the ball, even when Walter Payton was relentlessly piling up yardage and Gale Sayers was at his electrifying best.
What does it all mean? A playoff berth is within reach, or should be. Brett Favre’s Hamlet-like decision To Be the quarterback in Minnesota alters the balance of power in the division, but the hesitancy in his ruminating seemed more genuine this time. No. 4 is 40, old enough to be a grandfather, and if he’s injured or somehow not fully engaged, it’s a long, steep drop to Sage Rosenfels or Tarvaris Jackson. Green Bay’s offensive gains could be offset by defensive losses. Detroit rises behind a serious coach and an emerging quarterback, but still has much ground to cover.
New Orleans looks again like the class of the conference, but surprise Super Bowl winners are sometimes too satisfied to recapture the necessary resolve. The Donovan McNabb trade hurts Philadelphia and helps Washington, but the Redskins don’t have enough complementary parts around him to make a huge leap. Dallas will be what Dallas has been in recent years: not quite all it should be.
Let’s be optimistic and put the Bears in the playoffs, but figure that they won’t advance terribly far. Too many questions on the offensive line, at wide receiver and at safety, though a caller to one of the talk shows on my first day back in town was having none of it. In Martz we trust, he said — Martz’s magic has already transformed Forte into the reincarnation of Marshall Faulk.
Well, they’re both from New Orleans. It’s a start.