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For the way he played as a starter, Bears quarterback Caleb Hanie should join Steve Bartman as a “Goat” in Chicago lore

With the last week of the 2011 NFL Season approaching, Chicago Bears’ fans have to be wondering how one of the league’s hottest teams for almost two-thirds of the schedule is going to limp home out of the playoffs.  As crazy as it sounds, one single event changed the entire course of a season for the Bears organization… and no Steve Bartman was not involved.  Let’s travel back to Week 11 of this season.  Chicago – an overall record of 7-3 at the time and firmly in 2nd place in the NFC North division — was putting the finishing touches on a big 31-20 home win over the San Diego Chargers for their fifth straight victory of the season.  But lost in the euphoria of the the win was the disdaining news that Bears starting quarterback Jay Cutler (286 passing yards and 3 total touchdowns in the win) had injured his thumb while being blocked by Chargers linebacker Donald Butler on an interception return.

After Cutler took the podium for his postgame press conference, you could clearly see — hand was well wrapped — that he had suffered much more than a minor injury.  And unfortunately not much later, x-rays confirmed that indeed his thumb had been broken.  More news later soon trickled in that Cutler’s thumb would soon require surgery that more than likely would end his 2011 season – 6 to 9 week recovery. Though the news was colamitous to the Bears hopes of returning to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2006.  However despite Cutler’s injury, there still seemed to be a few rays of sunshine for the Bears’ hopes in their last 6 games.

1) Several other players, including RB Matt Forte (playing for a new contract), were having standout seasons

2) Chicago’s defense, led by Pro Bowl players LB Brian Urlacher, LB Lance Briggs, and DE Julius Peppers, was ranked at the time as one of the NFL’s best;

3) In four of those games, the Bears would playing against defenses that had allowed some qurterbacks to have success and most importantly

4) The team had high confidence in back-up quarterback Caleb Hanie and felt at the time that bringing in a veteran quarterback was not needed. 

Almost immediately before the Bears even started making preparations for the Oakland Raiders in Week 12, Hanie – a undrafted free agent from Colorado State – was considered more than just a “quarterback care taker” for the supposedly playoff-bound team by the organization’s players, coaches, and front office.  The former no-name 26-year old backup had played fairly well in relief of Cutler and former teammate Todd Collins in the team’s 2010 NFC Championship Game loss to the Green Bay Packers – passed for numbers of 13-for-20 for 153 yards with 1 TD and 2 INTs in the close 21-14 home loss.

Hanie, who had only thrown 14 regular-season passes at that point in his career, said of the opportunity, “I definitely don’t want to be known as a game manager around the league, because I feel that like just submits you to backup role or fill-in role the rest of your career.”   The confident former 3rd stringer added, “I’m going to try and make plays. I’m not going to play scared. I’m not going to play ultra, ultra-conservative. But I’m not going to play dumb.”
 
Everyone with the Bears family rallied around Hanie and they felt their defense and Forte could hide his deficiences.  The most glowing endorsement for the still learning quarterback was supposed quarterback guru and Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz.  The former Rams head coach spoke beamingly of Hanie when he said, “He can run our offense, yeah.” Martz added, “He’s fully aware, and can execute the things we’ve been doing. We’re pleased…. He’s been preparing himself for this for a long time, so we think he’s more than ready for this.” 

If only the Bears knew what they were getting themselves into!  The first signs of Hanie’s ineptness appeared the following week in his first start against the Oakland Raiders.  In a tough hostile enviornment, the young quarterback threw three interceptions – two of the horrible variety – and appeared lost at times as the field goal-happy Raiders – Janikowski kicked a team record 6 FGs — fought back a furious Chicago 4th quarter comeback to win 25-20.

Though the Bears came up short, they were in the game mostly due to their defense and a 172-yard rushing effort.  However after the “close” loss, many in the Bears’ organization were ready to give Hanie (18-36, 254 yds, 2 TDs, 3 INTs and 50 rushing yards) a mulligan despite his inconsistent performance that indirectled to the snapping of their 5-game winning streak. 

With a record of 7-4 and an upcoming game against the struggling Chiefs, everything still looked up in Chi-Town.  “He kept us in the game,” Urlacher said after the game. The veteran Bears leader added, “If we play better defense, we win the game. We were in the game late but just did not make enough plays on defense.”  But one play in the Oakland game gave some forbodding insight into Hanie.  While driving for a game-tying score with 8 seconds left on the clock, Hanie didn’t know the quarterback spike rules that every NFL team goes over in practice. 

After taking a snap instead of immediately spiking the ball, Hanie took a couple of steps back as if he was attempting a pass, and then unexpectedly spiked the ball – guess he was summoning his inner Dan Marino (back in the day, the former Dolphins hall-of-famer fake spiked a pass before throwing touchdown versus a stunned NY Jets squad).  Officials’ flags littered the field as a bewildered Hanie was charged with intentional grounding and the Bears were forced to accept a 10-second runoff of the clock, which ended the game.

The legend of Caleb Hanie only continued to grow in Week 13 as the Bears (7-5) returned home to face the equally struggling Kansas City Chiefs (5-7).  And a further subplot was added to the game as the Denver Broncos completely commited to Tim Tebow as their quarterback by waiving backup Kyle Orton on November 23rd.  Rightfully the Bears tried to claim their former starter, but so too did the Chiefs and Cowboys and they both had a higher claim to Orton. 

The now “wanted” passer was awarded to the Chiefs.  With Orton on the Chiefs’ sidelines, NFL fans were treated to the worst game of probably the entire 2011 season by two starting quarterbacks.  Hanie (11-24, 133 yards, 0 TDs, 3 INTs and was sacked 7 times) and Chiefs back-up Tyler Palko (17-31, 157 yards, 1 TD, and 0 INTs) were in a word, “Putrid”.  The Chiefs won by a score of 10-3 with the game’s only touchdown on a miracle Hail-Mary-Pass completion at the end of the first half.

After a another terrible loss with Hanie at the helm, the news from the Chiefs’ game got worse as Bears RB Matt Forte hurt the MCL in his rigth knee and was more than likely to be out 6 Weeks (rest of regular season) with the injury.  You would have thought after 6 INTs and a 0-2 record in two starts that the Bears would have finally said, “The Hell with the Hanie Experiment”.  But the Bears HC Lovie Smith, OC Mike Martz, and now team management — by their silence – continued to support their unraveling backup.  Incredibly after watching Hanie struggle once again, the Bears infatically said that they had no interest signing recently waived Chicago homeboy and former Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb – waived on December 2nd.

I could not believe my eyes and ears as many within the Bears organization tried to sell to the public that they had a better chance of winning with Hanie (knows the system) than McNabb (threw 4 TDs and 2 INTs in starting for six games for Minnesota; along with career numbers 98 wins, 37276 passing yards, 234 TDs, and 117 INTs). 

I almost fell over in my chair when Bears WR/KR Devin Hester – probably speaking for the entire organization –  said on ESPN Radio about the a possibility of signing McNabb, “It’s going to be tough right now to add a quarterback that hasn’t played in a Mike Martz offense. It’s one of the more difficult offenses to run. So to get a quarterback that hasn’t been in that offense, right now it’s going to be a waste of time.”  Record-setting return man added, “I guess we’ll stick with the guys we have right now and hope we get better with those guys.”

As crazy as it sounded, the Bears had made their bed with Hanie and now they were going to lay in it…. “Wildcard playoff spot be damned!”  The following game in Week 14 was a national spotlight game as Hanie returned to Colorado to face the NFL’s latest and greatest phenomena, Tim Tebow.  But in a game that definitely broke the Bears’ 2011 season’s back, their defense and running back Marion Barber played their hearts out in an effort for season-saving win, only to have everything slip away. 

And of course, the Bears were expected to win despite trying to hide Hanie (12-19, 115 yards, 0 TDs, and 0 INTs).  However in the NFL there is no hiding as the Broncos fueled by Tim Tebow (21-40, 236, 1 TD, and 1 INT) and two big boo-boo mistakes by Barber (ran out of bounds late and a huge fumble) won 13-10 in overtime.

Despite a now 0-3 starting record, Hanie still was given yet another mulligan, this time probably courtesy of Barber.  As he was named the starter for the Bears (7-6) crucial game against the equally playoff-hungry Seattle Seahawks.  And this game proved to be Hanie’s worst performance ever as he finished with the following horrid passing numbers (11 for 25, 123 yards, 1 TD, and 4 INTs including two Pick-6’s) in the Bears’ humiliating 38-14 embarassing loss.  It got so bad in the game for Hanie – made struggling Seattle starter Tarvaris Jackson look like Unitas – that Smith finally inserted recently-signed veteran back-up Josh McCown to finish the game after the struggling starter’s second Pick-6 late in the game. 

After the Seattle game, Smith was in full back-pedal mode in trying to protect Hanie, but there was no excuse in the world that could have saved his inept passer.  And let’s face it, I don’t even know if Lovie believed a single word that he was saying in defense of Hanie in his Monday presser.  ”You have to have the right player in that position as much as anything. It’s tough to prepare a No. 2 quarterback. You prepare the No. 1 guy and you do what you can with the No. 2 guy. How do you prepare him? Through the offseason. With him in meetings. But as far as actual work, it’s hard to get a backup quarterback a lot of work. You just hope to have the right guy in that position.”

Smith thinking that he could completely squash the subject added some team-speak to. ”We are making some of the same mistakes that we made (in the NFC Championship Game), as a football team.  Caleb is a part of that. You just keep working to get better. We are doing that. Anytime we see a guy making a mistake in that game, we’re working to get it better. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. And I’m going to say that about our football team. We’re 7-7. We need to get that solved pretty quick.”  Thankfully the Bears finally said “Enough is Enough” and benched Hanie versus the Green Bay Packers in Week 16.

However starting McCown (19-28, 242 yards, 1 TD, and 2 INTs) didn’t make any difference as the Chicago slipped to a record of 7-8 and were officially kicked out of the playoff race.  But you can’t blame the journeyman starter for not looking so well against the NFL’s No. 1 team.  By the time the Bears reached Lambeau Stadium in Week 16, they were just a corpse of the highly energetic jubiliant team that I had interviewed in their victorious Lincoln Financial Field visitor’s lockerroom after their big Monday Night Football win over the Eagles in Week 9.

You never want to blame one player when a football team has 53 players on their roster.  But you cannot escape the fact that if Hanie had looked anywhere remotely like a serviceable NFL quarterback that Chicago would have been in the playoff picture.  Hanie, who is sure to be nowhere near Chicago in 2012 (unrestricted free agent), finished with a starting record of 0-4 while producing 3 touchdowns, 9 INTs, and a 41.8 quarterback rating.  So now the Bears are left to wonder, “What If” – especially winnable game loses to Kansas City and Denver.
 
I betcha now that if Chicago — lost 5 straight games since Cutler injury with a 7-8 record–  had the chance for a do-over wayback in the first week of December that the Bears’ front office would have jumped into Lake Michigan’s wintery waters for the opportunity to claim/sign a proven winning veteran quarterback like McNabb. 

But alas all this sounds like “Loser’s Lament” as The McCaskey’s (owners), GM Jerry Angelo, Smith, Martz (might be out as OC) and everyone else within the Bears organization has to live with their terrible decision of putting their season’s fate in the inexperienced hands of Caleb Hanie. 

What did Hester say earlier of the possibility of signing McNabb, “A waste of time”….. C’Mon Man, you should have opened your eyes to a real season-saving opportunity.

Lloyd Vance is the Editor  for Taking It to the House , who is also an award-winning member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA).  Lloyd can be reached on Twitter @lloydvance_nfl