Jerry and the Bears: The lost decade

By Burl Rolett

A breakdown of Jerry Angelo's failed tenure as GM of the Chicago Bears.

It took some time for Chicago Bears President Ted Phillips to say it at Tuesday's press conference, the one following a six-week collapse that kept the Bears out of the playoffs for the fourth time in five years.

His speech was full of rambling, empty rhetoric and half-answers. Eventually, though, one thing became certain: General Manager Jerry Angelo was out.

Phillips played coy about his reasons for firing Angelo after a 10-year reign as GM, but the phrases “talent gap” and “talent evaluation” kept popping up. There is certainly a talent gap in the NFC North. The Green Bay Packers are one of the league’s premier teams, and look primed to occupy the division’s top spot for years to come. The Detroit Lions are one of the NFL’s fastest-improving teams, and are playoff bound only three seasons after posting the NFL’s first 0-16 season. And as the talent gap has grown in the past few years, the Bears have been left behind.

It has not been for a lack of effort; Chicago has been far more aggressive when it comes to trades and free agency than any other NFC North team, and that is to Angelo’s credit. In fact, Angelo has never had a talent acquisition problem. He's an opportunist that closed some of the biggest deals in Bears history. 

But where Angelo had issues, and what eventually led to his dismissal, was his failure to draft well enough to keep pace with the team's divisional rivals.

Talent Acquisition

Angelo was always ready and able to make big moves when surefire talent became available. He brokered a blockbuster trade in April 2009, bringing in Jay Cutler in exchange for then-starting quarterback Kyle Orton, two first-round picks and a third-round pick. 

Prior to that, Angelo fleeced the Miami Dolphins in a deal for top AFC pass rusher Adewale Ogunleye. The Bears gave up just wide receiver Marty Booker-- who caught more than 50 passes in a season only once for the rest of his career-- and a third-round draft pick. 

On the free agent market, Angelo engineered the 2009 signing of defensive end Julius Peppers to a six-year, $91 million contract.

But those three “talent acquisitions” didn’t require a depth of “talent evaluation.” Every team, sportswriter and fan knew what the Bears were getting when they brought in Jay Cutler and two Pro Bowl pass rushers. 

No, it was the less certain acquisitions that gave Angelo fits. He signed unproven running back Chester Taylor to a four-year deal with $7 million guaranteed on the same day the Peppers deal was closed. Taylor was out of Chicago a year later. He squandered a second-round draft pick in a 2009 trade for disappointing defensive end Gaines Adams, who had already underperformed in two seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He never started a game for the Bears in the 2010 season, and failed to record even a single sack.

And in the NFL draft, Angelo’s “talent evaluation” deficiency was on full display. From a string of first-round busts to the organizational embarrassment of a botched trade in last year’s draft, the Packers and Lions consistently beat him on draft day.

Homegrown Talent

Every NFC North team except the Bears is led by young talent acquired through recent drafts. 

The Vikings drafted playmaker Percy Harvin in the first round of the 2009 draft and perennial Pro Bowler Adrian Peterson seventh overall in 2007. Linebacker Chad Greenway, who has led the Vikings in tackles the last four seasons, was their top pick in 2006.

Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson make up one of the most feared quarterback-receiver combos in the league, perhaps second only to Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings. Ndamukong Suh, meanwhile, is a force on the defensive line. 

In Green Bay, AJ Hawk and Clay Matthews have both turned in Pro Bowl seasons, and of all these players, Rodgers is the elder statesman. He was a late first-round pick in 2005.

The Bears have Cutler, Peppers and aging linebackers Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher. Cutler and Peppers, of course, were acquired outside the draft. Urlacher was a first-rounder in 2000 (the year before the Angelo era began) and Briggs was a third-round pick nine years ago. Matt Forte is the only current Bears star Angelo has picked up on draft day, and the only offensive Pro Bowler he drafted over his time in Chicago.

Top Pick Futility

The explanation for that lack of young talent starts with how the Bears have fared with their top picks since 2005, when the Packers selected Aaron Rodgers with the 24th overall pick and the run of great young NFC North players began.

The Bears top draft picks in that time period were as follows: Cedric Benson, Danieal Manning (2nd round, Bears traded out of the first round), Greg Olsen, Chris Williams, Jarron Gilbert (3rd round), Major Wright (3rd Round) and Gabe Carimi.

Only one of those players started the final game of the 2011 season.

Benson, the 4th overall pick in 2005, brought a lengthy arrest record to Chicago, and then added on to it until the Bears released him in 2009. Manning was a career nickel back and special teamer. Olsen was wasted talent in a Mike Martz offense, so Angelo dealt him for a 3rd round draft pick. A year later, Martz was out and the Bears are without a top-tier receiving tight end for the next offensive system. Both Williams and Carimi have yet to play an injury-free NFL season. Jarron Gilbert could jump out of a swimming pool, but all that athleticism has amounted to a grand total of one NFL tackle. Major Wright is the Bears’ starting strong safety.

Well done, Jerry.

More Early Round Woes

The second and third have not been any kinder. Chicago selected 22 players in the first three rounds in the past eight drafts, and just eight remain.

Wright and Earl Bennett were the only two to finish this season as starters. Forte, safety Chris Conte, Carimi and Williams make a total of six ideal starters that Angelo has picked in the three rounds of the last eight drafts. Defensive tackle Stephen Paea figures into the rotation on the defensive line, but will have trouble passing a healthy Anthony Adams, Matt Toeaina and Henry Melton on the depth chart.

Of course, Devin Hester is the last of the eight. Hester is the best return man ever to play the game, and turned out to be a great draft pick-- even if Angelo drafted him to play cornerback.

With Hester, Angelo waited until 2008 to make his mistake, giving him a four-year, $30 million contract. The contract alone was not the issue, but Angelo (and Head Coach Lovie Smith) thought that Hester would become a No. 1 receiver, and tried to force him in to the Bears starting lineup. Over the two years Hester spent at the top of the depth chart, he managed 108 catches for 1,412 yards and 6 touchdowns. Not terrible, but not productive enough to justify the high cost.

What was bad is that over those two seasons, Hester was a nonfactor in the return game. After 12 total return touchdowns in his first two seasons, he failed to record single return touchdown in 2008 and 2009. Hester’s return average spiraled too, averaging just 6.9 yards per punt return over that two year span, from 15.5 yards in 2007.

When the Bears finally did pull him from the starting lineup, they had no true No. 1 receiver to take his spot.

Draft Day to Game Day

On Christmas Day, The Bears ran onto Lambeau Field as 13-point underdogs. A string of injuries had already derailed a promising season for the Monsters of the Midway, and they entered the game after losing four straight games as favorites. On the other sideline sat the reigning Super Bowl champion Packers.

The Bears never had a chance that Christmas, and it was not because Cutler and Pro Bowl running back Matt Forte could not make the trip. The Packers had a far better team even with the Bears at full strength, and their dominance on the field was the result of a near-decade of better drafts. Of the 22 offensive and defensive starters that day, only eight were Bears draft picks from the last eight drafts. The Packers, meanwhile, had turned 13 draft picks into starters over the same time period.

One year earlier, the roles were reversed. The Packers met the Bears in Week 17 with their playoff hopes on the line-- and more players on injured reserve than on the football field. Yet, the Packers survived that day with the 22 starters they could muster. Fourteen of them had been drafted by the Packers since 2004.

Evaluating Talent Evaluation

Jerry Angelo may have been one of the only people in the world who thought Devin Hester could be a No. 1 wide receiver in the NFL, but that has been the story of Angelo’s career in Chicago. His talent evaluation has been painfully off the mark ever since his first NFL draft pick, and his bringing Cutler and Peppers to Chicago will not save his legacy or make up for all the bad draft picks that left the Bears trailing both the Packers and the Lions in the NFC North. 

Angelo had an attractive pedigree when he came to Chicago, much like his first draft pick, David Terrell. The eighth overall selection in the 2001 draft was a big receiver out of Michigan who looked good on paper and at the combine. But Terrell was a classic NFL bust, dropping passes more often than he made a play and falling far short of expectations.

Like Terrell, Angelo repeatedly dropped the ball and failed to fulfill his promise. Like Terrell, he should have been out the door years ago.

Burl Rolett is Began in ‘96’s Midwestern guest contributor. He writes regularly at his Chicago Bears blog, Grabowskis in Exile.

Image via Chicagonow.com