Why Bears fans are afraid future will follow frightening past

After opening 4-2, Chicago has now lost two in a row. And with another loss on Sunday at home to New England, the Bears will have their longest losing streak in more than a year. History is important in understanding why Bears fans are scared to death with regard to the future of quarterback Caleb Williams and Chicago’s current coaching staff.

“I hate saying this about Caleb,” said former defensive end Chris Canty Thursday on ESPN’s Unsportsmanlike Radio, “because I still want to believe that he can be a good quarterback. But it feels like this is going the way of Justin Fields. It’s going the way of Mitch Trubisky, going the way of Rex Grossman; it’s going the way of Cade McNown.”

Those are frightening words to the Chicago fanbase. Since Chicago took McNown in the first round of the 1999 draft, the Bears have started 30 quarterbacks and only one – Jay Cutler (51) – has won at least 30 games.

By comparison in that stretch, Minnesota has started 26 quarterbacks and two, Kirk Cousins (50) and Daunte Culpepper (38), have won at least 30. Detroit has started 17 and two, Matthew Stafford (74) and Jared Goff (31), have reached 30. And Green Bay has started just eight with Aaron Rodgers (147) and Brett Favre (86) topping 30 victories.

“I will acknowledge that Caleb is more talented than all those quarterbacks,” said Canty, who once sacked Cutler in a 2010 New York Giants win. “But even with that talent, I don’t know that he can overcome the dysfunction of the Chicago Bears.”

That dysfunction has surfaced in a pattern over the last seven years in which the Bears have drafted a quarterback in the first round, then fired their head coach after the quarterback’s rookie season. They drafted Fields 11th overall in 2021, then fired Matt Nagy before the 2022 campaign. They drafted Trubisky second overall in 2017, then fired John Fox before 2018. Could they continue that pattern with Williams and Matt Eberflus?

Chicago might consider breaking the pattern because since 1999 in the NFC, only Washington (8,262) has scored fewer points than Chicago (8,290). However, the current Bears staff has an insane task on the horizon. The Bears won’t take New England lightly on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, FOX) because, after the Patriots (2-7), Chicago gets a six-game stretch that includes five opponents from the NFL’s best division, the NFC North, and the 49ers (4-4) on the road.

Sunday’s game opposite rookie Drake Maye and the Patriots is also Chicago’s fifth this year against a starting quarterback drafted in either 2023 or 2024. The Bears are 1-3 in those games so far, with a season-opening win over Will Levis and the Titans followed by losses to C.J. Stroud and the Texans, Anthony Richardson and the Colts, and Jayden Daniels in Washington, the Daniels Miracle Victory.

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