The most famous quote ever uttered about NFL ineptitude came out of the mouth of the Buccaneers’ first coach, John McKay. When asked about his team’s execution, he famously said: “I’m in favor of it.”
It took his team almost two full years to win its first game. When the Bucs beat the Saints in 1977 to snap an 0-26 start, McKay was ready with another quip.
“Three or four plane crashes,” he said, “and we’re in the playoffs.”
The Buccaneers began their existence as the NFL’s laughingstock. They spent the next four decades living down to their reputation, save for a span from 1997-2002, when they went to the playoffs five times and won one Super Bowl. Their .393 all-time winning percentage is still the worst in the NFL.
Entering this season, they hadn’t been to the playoffs since a wild-card loss in 2007. They’d hired five coaches since; the four fired before Bruce Arians — including Lovie Smith, who won a quarter of his games — combined to go 55-105.
They whiffed on their No. 1 overall pick, quarterback Jameis Winston. In 2018, the NFL suspended him for three games following allegations that he groped an Uber driver. The next year, he became the first NFL quarterback to throw 30 interceptions since 1998. His team went 7-9.
The Buccaneers replaced Winston with Tom Brady, a free agent after 20 years with the Patriots.
Sunday night, they celebrated a Super Bowl victory in their home stadium.
“This was a very very talented football team last year, but we didn’t really know how to win,” Arians said Monday morning. “When you bring a winner in and he’s running the ship, it makes a total difference in your locker room, every time we step out on the field. …
“It permeated through our whole locker room: his belief that we’re gonna do this. And knowing that he’d been there and done it, our guys believed it. It changed our entire football team.”
The Bears are a franchise in desperate need of a similar change. As bad as the Bucs have been, traditionally, they’ve dwarfed the Bears since 2000. In the same number of postseason appearances — six — Tampa Bay has won two Super Bowls. The Bears have won three playoff games.
While Bears president/CEO Ted Phillips bizarrely bragged about the team’s culture in a postseason press conference last month, the Bears know a winning vibe must emanate from the person who plays the most important position in sports. It’s trite to say the Bears need their own Brady. They’d probably be thrilled to add a quarterback that produces 70 percent of what the seven-time Super Bowl winner did in his age 43 season.
They’re kicking the tires on Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz, though surely not at the price point — two first-round picks? — that have been floated in recent days. Two league sources wondered this weekend if a series of leaks during the Super Bowl media cycle was due to Eagles general manager Howie Roseman trying to chum the waters in hopes someone would meet his asking price.
The teams checking in on Wentz’s availability, though, appear to have leverage. The fact that the Eagles are willing to eat $33.8 million — more than anyone has ever swallowed to part with a player in league history — warrants caution.
Like the Bears, the Colts have a need at quarterback and a connection to Wentz. Colts head coach Frank Reich was Wentz’s former coordinator in Philadelphia; Press Taylor, who is reportedly headed to Indianapolis, was his quarterbacks coach and pass-game coordinator in 2020. Bears quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo served the same role for the Eagles in 2017, when Wentz posted an MVP-caliber season before hurting his knee. On Monday, the Bears announced that they were giving DeFilippo the added title of pass-game coordinator, a job held last year by Dave Ragone.
The Bears are tied, justifiably, to every veteran quarterback this offseason. They might find the trade market for the Jets’ Sam Darnold and the Raiders’ Derek Carr more to their liking. Carr might be better than Wentz; Darnold is four-and-a-half years younger than the Eagles quarterback.
None are Brady — not even close — but could stabilize the position. Teaching the Bears how to win, though, is a stretch.
Looking like he never made it to bed, Arians told a story Monday morning: after the Bucs committed 11 penalties for 109 yards and fumbled once in a Week 5 loss to the Bears, their leaders huddled on the flight home.
“Our guys coming back on the plane from Chicago made a commitment to each other that we’re gonna stop beating ourselves,” Arians said. “What a great, great job they have done all the way through. No turnovers, very very few penalties….
“We realized that after that game. It’s been an easy job coaching ever since.”
That’s the best way to describe adding the right veteran quarterback: It makes everyone’s life easier. It mitigates mistakes. It sucks up specters, Ghostbusters-style, once thought to be inseparable from a failing franchise. It saves jobs — something that general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy are keenly aware of. And it makes fans forget a team’s scandal du jour; if the Bears land a good quarterback, no one will remember Phillips’ comments last month a year from now.
There’s only one Brady. If the Bears were inspired by any part of Sunday, it’s this: If the Bucs can be turned around by the sheer force of a quarterback, anyone can.
