Caleb Hanie, Chicago Bears

Why was Todd Collins Ahead of Caleb Hanie in Bears Depth Chart?

By Rich Laskowski of LockerSmash.com

For the love of God don’t read into this and expect me to recap what happened to the Chicago Bears against the Green Bay Packers. I don’t work for ESPN. I’m just a broke writer hiding out somewhere deep in Michigan who likes to have a few beers and a smoke in his garage, desperate to come up with a good story for this week.
You should know that for the last half hour I’ve been banging my head on the toilet after my having my heart ripped from my chest, doused with gasoline, and then set on fire with a Green Bay Packer Zippo. The last thing I want to talk about right now is theBears game. And I know for a fact every hack on the internet is toking chronic right now and blogging about whether or not Jay Cutler was really too hurt to continue the game. I didn’t wanna be that guy. So instead I started on a Chicago White Sox preview, and yawned, but then something messed up caught my attention on Twitter.
It was Tweet from Maurice Jones-Drew about how Cutler faked an injury and quit on his team. This hadn’t occurred to me. I couldn’t believe he would say that from his couch. Jay Cutler is a lot of things, and tough is one of them.
After learning of the Jones-Drew’s tweet from reporters at the post-game press conference Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher even defended Cutler by saying, “I don’t question his toughness. He’s tough as hell. He’s one of the toughest guys on our football team. He doesn’t bitch. He doesn’t complain when he gets hit. He goes out there and plays his ass off every Sunday.” Check out the ESPN video below:
I’m with Urlacher on this one. So my first thought: this is easy for Maurice Jones-Drew to say. He isn’t owed $20 million in guaranteed money by his team like Jay Cutler is. And this is also the same guy (Jones-Drew) who just had arthroscopic surgery to repair torn knee cartilage, the same injury team doctors suspected Jay Cutler suffered tonight, and an injury which caused Jones-Drew to sit out the last two crucial games of the season while they were battling the Indianapolis Colts for the AFC South Title. Needless to say, the Jags lost their last two games and missed the playoffs for the 4th straight year. You backseat driving punk!
The facts are Jay Cutler hurt his knee near the end of the first half. At halftime trainers and team doctors who examined Cutler’s knee suspected either torn cartilage or a torn/sprained ligament. Jay tried to play on it when the 3rd quarter began, but it quickly became obvious he couldn’t plant his feet to throw (I know, I know, something he doesn’t do anyway right). At that point trainers and team doctors made the call to pull the team’s 20-million dollar quarterback from the game.
So you can bitch about Cutler’s heart all you want tonight, but this is not Mike Ditka’s NFL anymore. This is the Ballerina NFL. When the team doctor shuts somebody down (especially a quarterback) that player IS NOT going back into the game under any circumstances.
Instead of reading tweets about Jay Cutler’s heart, people should be tweeting about why Todd Collins was listed higher on the depth chart than Caleb Hanie, or about why the Bears have the worst offensive line in football, or about why Roger Goodell is turning the NFL into a sissy sport.

I remember the quarterback depth chart issue being raised to John Clayton earlier in the year after Bears fans had suffered through the Todd Collins Show against the Carolina Panthers, where the 39 year-old statue went 6-16 with 32 yards and 4 interceptions. John Clayton said Todd Collins was starting over Caleb Hanie was because Collins’ had a good grasp of Mike Martz’ offense, while Caleb Hanie was still struggling to learn the playbook. See in the NFL regardless of how talented or capable you may be, if you don’t know the plays you’re not getting into the game except for NFC Championship emergencies.
Despite it all his playmaking limitations, and having no offensive line, Caleb Hanie played his ass off tonight. I was impressed with his poise in the pocket and with his handling of the no-huddle offense when you know he never gets to practice that in real life. Sure, the Bears lost the NFC Championship to the Green Bay Packers tonight, but at least Caleb Hanie gave us a chance to win. Maurice Jones-Drew can never take that away from us.