[CBFF] Bears have no clue who should be No. 2 (Mariotti)

[Victor Waldron]

    Bears have no clue who should be No. 2

/August 26, 2006/

*BY JAY MARIOTTI <mailto:jmariotti at suntimes.com> SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST *

It's never good when NFL novice Matt Leinart, with or without Paris 
Hilton, inspires more faith than Rex Grossman. Nor is it good when Rex 
the Hex, even on a night when he completes his first five passes, throws 
another interception and botches the center snap while drawing more 
disgusted boos from a cranky City of Weak Shoulders crowd that senses 
another quarterbacking fraud.

But you know what thoroughly stinks about this mess? It doesn't matter 
one twit if Grossman looks like Chad Hutchinson or Brian Griese plays 
like a quality NFL veteran, as he did again in leading a touchdown 
drive. Even if Rex's passer rating Friday evening was a measly 57, which 
happens to be the uniform number of the center (Olin Kreutz) who 
summoned him for a chat after several snap-count/offsides snafus, 
Grossman is still your starter.

You can boo Rex all you want. You can cheer Griese all you want. I can 
lobby for Griese all I want and advocate a ballcap for Grossman until my 
typing fingers turn into little nubs. Sadly, we're wasting our time. 
''He's our No. 1 quarterback,'' Lovie Smith said of Rex after another 
dismal offensive performance in a 23-16 loss to Arizona.

Why? ''Because he's a good football player,'' Smith said.

Maybe he used to be. Maybe he will be again. Right now, Grossman is an 
inconsistent football player at the position that has dogged the Bears 
for eons. ''It's obviously no fun to be booed. But at the same time, 
it's a reminder to get things done,'' Grossman said. ''They want to see 
points on the board, touchdowns. I don't like being booed, but I 
understand their frustration. I'm frustrated, too.

''I'm not going to lie and say I didn't hear it. It was pretty 
overwhelming. But I'm going to try to turn those boos to cheers.''

Is he hearing Griese breathing through his helmet earhole? ''Every time 
he's in there, he makes nice passes. But as far as looking over my 
shoulder, you can't. You just can't,'' Grossman said. ''As soon as you 
do that, you're done.''

If the third preseason game is the most telling, the Bears are in for a 
disappointing, uneven season. How about Alex Brown starting the night as 
a healthy defensive end and ending it with his dislocated right shoulder 
in a sling? But at least Thomas Jones was playing and Cedric Benson was 
standing on the sideline -- FOR THE ENTIRE GAME -- in his own designer 
ballcap. For that, you can feel better, I suppose.

There was Jones in the lakefront humidity, biceps and thighs all but 
ripping through his uniform, a burst of justice and karma rushing 
through Soldier Field. He should have been the No. 1 running back all 
along this preseason, but sometimes, it takes a jolt to a football 
franchise's philosophical blind spot -- and collective thick skull -- 
before reality crystalizes and allows the better man to keep a job.

*Benson a lesson for management*

That jolt was Benson, the goofiest Benson since Anna, whose wayward 
stroll from the sideline to the equipment manager's office to the back 
door should remind one and all that he's too immature to be the featured 
back on a team with Super Bowl aspirations. Other than the chance the 
Bears wasted a guaranteed $16 million on yet another first-round 
ballcarrier bust, I'm not at all sad this incident happened. It's 
definitely a good thing Benson revealed himself as a dope before he was 
handed the starting job and either (a) played oopsy-dropsy with the 
football like Rashaan Salaam; (b) had dramatic mood swings and 
personality changes like Curtis Enis; or (c) both.

For now, he is covered by pariah dust, having been outed as a flighty, 
petulant prima donna who goes his own way too often, speaks his mind too 
freely and doesn't have the respect of teammates, a couple of whom 
ratted out his first-quarter exit last week to the Sun-Times. If Smith 
and Jerry Angelo don't douse this flareup of volcanic ash and officially 
demote Benson to the second team when he returns from his shoulder 
injury, the Bears could be torn apart not by only their usual QB fray 
but by an RB controversy caused by management.

That's right, management, which hopefully has learned to reward players 
based on hard-earned production instead of guaranteed money and draft 
status.

What's scary is that the Bears' braintrust, a long-established oxymoron, 
needed this bizarre episode to latch onto what the rest of us sensed all 
along. Jones is everything Benson is not -- proven, reliable, respected. 
But of all people, Benson became Angelo's pet because the general 
manager took him fourth in the 2005 draft and wanted to protect his 
investment -- and his own reputation -- by making him the lead back. 
This was a dumb, dangerous call. Were Angelo and Smith not paying 
attention when several defensive players went out of their way to 
plaster Benson in the early parts of training camp? Hasn't a vague chasm 
existed since Jones was demoted because he didn't appear for 
''voluntary'' offseason workouts, which becomes so much semantics hell 
when ''voluntary'' actually means ''mandatory'' in Smith's dictionary 
and causes potential issues in-house? Truth is, Jones won locker-room 
reverence last year when he rushed for 1,335 yards even though every 
defense knew he was coming, all because Angelo was caught unprepared 
again at QB. A lot of Bears want Jones to start, not only because he is 
more prepared to produce in the crunch but because he has earned the 
right. A lot of Bears don't want Benson to start because he has gained 
less than 300 yards for his $16 million.

*Passer ratings say it all*

The theatrical production of catching Benson in the act of leaving a 
sideline, then reporting him, is an outgrowth of his outcast status. The 
last thing the Bears need is even a smidgen of a T.O.-type personality 
in their midst, and while Benson seems more a loner than a 
SportsCenter-seeking parasite, he has made too many unnecessary comments 
about his competitive relationship with Jones. When you think about it, 
Benson actually let his bosses off the hook with this episode. They were 
on their way to making a colossal personnel mistake, one that could have 
eroded the character of this team. You don't overlook Jones' wonderful 
season while staring too hard at the up-front money paid to Benson. And 
if Halas Hall needs more proof why Benson isn't ready for heavy lifting, 
the boys should clip-and-save his reaction to the episode.

''Life teaches you a ton of lessons as you move along,'' Benson said. 
''It also showed me a lot, the situation, about where I stand with the 
team, where I stand with some guys. I don't regret it.''

He doesn't regret it. That's all you need to know about Cedric Benson. I 
just wish he were the only problem. Know what Griese's preseason passer 
rating is? A blurry 148.5.

And Rex's? A boo-worthy 48, almost seven points below Kyle Orton's.