SPORTS A TALL TALE
Despite glowing buildup from GM Pace, Glennon has been exposed as a flawed NFL QB
While we await word about when the Bears finally w will admit the obvious and announce that Mitch Trubisky is their starting quarterback, one question: Could general manager Ryan Pace have been any more w wrong about Mike Glennon? It’s hard to recall a player being exposed for what he is asa quickly as Glennon has been. We’re talking world- record speed here.her It took only a few days of training camp to see Glennon wasn’t whatwha Pace had made him about to be. And Pace had made him out to b be ‘‘ a big quarterback with a strong arm.’’ ‘‘ He can see the field, he’s accurate, he gets the ball out q quick,’’ Pace said at Glennon’s introductory news conference in March.Ma ‘‘ So there’s a lot of traits about him that I like.’’ And then the games started. Oh, m man, the games. What had been evident in camp became the basis for the Bears’ game plans. Because Glennon had littlelitt accuracy on deep passes, they settled for one of two kinds of passes:passes short and shorter. In the Bears’ 1- 3 start, Gl Glennon has averaged a paltry six yardsy per pass attempt and his passerp rating is 76.9. He has thrownthro four touchdown passes a and five interceptions, includinginclu two picks in the terribleterribl loss Thursday to the Packers.Packe He also has lost two fumbles,fumb both coming Thursday. H He has only four completionscompletion of 20 yards or more. It has been unwatchable.unw Making it worse isi that Trubisky, whow is exceptionally athletic,a has been wait waiting in the wings while Glennon, who has the mobility of a pool table,ta has continued to play. I’m notno trying to pile on Glennon.Glennon Really, I’m not. He’s not to b blame for this mess. There was nothingnothi in his backgroundback with the
Buccaneers to suggest he was going to be a good quarterback, and he simply has lived up to that beige scouting uting report. It’s not his fault the Bears s inflated his abilities beyond recognition. nition. It’s not his fault the Bears gavee him $ 18.5 million in guaranteed money. It’s not his fault Bears wide receivers ceivers were injured at such a high rate.
So what did d Pace see in Glennon, and what was he drinking when he saw it?
It should have ave been a tipoff when Pace was pumped mped that Glennon, upon arriving at Halas Hall for the first rst time, asked for r the playbook, photos of everyone in the building with whom he might interact and the cellphone numbers of his s teammates on n offense.
‘‘ Right away, y, I think that tellslls you something g about a guy when that’s kind nd of his mindset t before he walks ks in the building,’’g,’’ Pace said.
This is the type of thing a coach ch or a GM stresses ses when he runs out of material about bout a player’s ability y and his results on the field. I’ve never seen someone meone peel a banana at breakfastakfast with such singular focus! Or, He answers all his s own fan mail — with a calligrapher’sgrapher’s pen!
NFL talent evaluators are wrong all the time; it’s goes with the job. But this was a complete whiffhiff that came with a ton of guaranteed money. It was a whiff that well could force the Bears rs to play a rookie quarterback before his time. They had a plan. It’s not going as planned. Because Glennon isn’t what they conjured him up to be, it appears almost certain they’ll be forced to expose Trubisky to an offense lacking weapons. He’ll have to make plays with his legs and with his arm. And the Bears will pray his mind and body aren’t affected in the long term by whatever he encounters. You can bet that somewhere down the line, when the subject arises of how in the world Pace could have decided on Glennon, the Bears will respond by asking what other quarterbacks were available who were better. But that’s not an answer; that’s a dodge. The answer is that Pace was hired to make decisions like this and that his job was to find a quarterback who could keep Trubisky’s spot warm while the kid learned and matured on the sideline. There was no appetite for keeping Jay Cutler, and rightly so. But that didn’t mean any old replacement would do. The Bears chose Glennon. It doesn’t matter if other teams thought highly of him. Those other teams didn’t give him all that money, and those other teams haven’t had have to suffer through his first four starts of 2017. Unless they were watching on TV. ‘‘ Mike Glennon is our starting quarterback, and we’re fired up about that,’’ Pace said so definitively in March. That’s not a fireable offense, simply because the Bears have Trubisky. But if Pace is as wrong about Trubisky as he was about Glennon, there won’t be a bus fast enough to get him out of town.