Scouting Report
5 -
Chicago Bears
The strategy is a sound and a sensible one for
Soldier Field: Pound the ball unmercifully. But will
Dave Wannstedt have the horses to make it
work?
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The fleet-footed Conway should see more single coverage if
the Bears get their running back untracked.
(Jay Crihfield/ Spurlock Photo) |
At training camp
the most popular mode of transportation is the golf cart.
Players zip to and from practice in the buggies as
white-knuckled passengers hold on for dear life. Somehow,
though, Edgar Bennett, the former Packer signed by the
Bears during the off-season to
help boost their running game, got stuck with a granny cart.
Parents pushing baby strollers were passing Bennett's cart
at the team's camp in Platteville,
Wis.
The cart drove Bennett bonkers. Fully recovered after
sitting out last season with a torn Achilles tendon,
Bennett can't stand to do anything at half speed anymore.
"I'm a back—I need speed," he says.
"I'm gonna drop a bigger engine in this thing, maybe
a radio. Soup it up, make it fast, make it bad, give it
some
power."
That's exactly what the Bears expect out of Bennett (who in
February signed a four-year, $6.2 million deal) and their
first-round draft choice, fellow running back
Curtis Enis.
However, at press time
negotiations between Enis and the Bears were creeping along
slower than Bennett's golf
cart.
Not that it hasn't been a busy off-season for Enis, who
left the Penn State football team last season before the
Nittany Lions' Citrus Bowl appearance after admitting he
had accepted clothing from agent Jeff Nalley. After a
religious awakening in June, he fired his agent, Vann
McElroy, and signed on with Greg Feste, a financial planner
who is new
at negotiating contracts. Enis was married in July. As the
contract dispute dragged on, word came that a grand jury in
Irving, Texas, would hear a sexual-assault complaint
against Enis. On Aug. 4, after Feste threatened to sit Enis
out the entire season, Chicago signed Bam
Morris.
"Curtis is a Soldier Field-type back," says coach
Dave Wannstedt. "He's big, fast and tough, perfect for
the mud, the snow and the cold. That's why we drafted him.
But he needs to get in here and get going. We're not
waiting for Curtis; we're moving ahead. Our philosophy is
not going to change. We're going to run the ball, period,
no matter who is carrying
it."
Right now that looks to be Bennett, one of 47 new faces who
reported for camp. "This is an
opportunity for me to be the man
again," he says. A proven all-around back who rushed for 899 yards
in 1996 as the Packers went on to win the Super Bowl, the
29-year-old Bennett will earn his money as the starter
and—if and when Enis shows up—eventually as a
third-down back. (In five seasons with Green Bay, Bennett
averaged 48 receptions, including a career-high 78 in
1994.)
"I hear people talking bad about the Bears all the time,
saying we don't have a chance," says Bennett, who
sustained his injury on the second possession of the
Packers' preseason opener last year. "How can they say
that when we have a veteran quarterback, talented wide
receivers, some great backs and a coach who is a master on
defense?"
Erik Kramer passed for 3,011 yards and 14 touchdowns last
season, and the Bears were undefeated in games in which
wideout Curtis Conway had 100 or more
receiving yards. Unfortunately for Bears fans, that only happened
three times. Conway missed the first six games with a
broken collarbone, then aggravated the injury later in the
season and missed three more games. Chicago was middle of
the road in the league in rushing, passing and total
offense, but only 28th in points. Making matters worse, the
Bears committed 41
turnovers, which the opposition turned into 122
points, fifth most in the league. Little wonder that in a
division loaded with high-powered attacks,
Wannstedt is intent on developing a
ground-oriented, time-consuming
offense.
| Schedule |
| Sept. | 6 | JACKSONVILLE |
| 13 | at Pittsburgh |
| 20 | at Tampa Bay |
| 27 | MINNESOTA |
| Oct. | 4 | DETROIT |
| 11 | at Arizona |
| 18 | DALLAS |
| 25 | at Tennessee |
| Nov. | 1 | OPEN DATE |
| 8 | ST. LOUIS |
| 15 | at Detroit |
| 22 | at Atlanta |
| 29 | TAMPA BAY |
| Dec. | 6 | at Minnesota |
| 13 | at Green Bay |
| 20 | BALTIMORE |
| 27 | GREEN BAY |
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That's easier said than done with a line devoid of stars
and lacking in depth. Left guard Todd Perry is considered
the best player up front, but he missed five games last
year due to injuries. The projected center is rookie Olin
Kreutz, a third-round draft pick out of Washington. Chris
Villarrial moves from center to right guard, and the tackles,
Andy Heck on the left side and James Williams on the right,
are solid but not
spectacular.
"On every successful team I've been with, the running
game was critical to the team's success," says
Wannstedt. "So we'll have to stay healthy and just
pound the ball and pound the ball. With our running game,
the uglier the
better."
So the line is average, the marquee
rookie running back is unsigned, the first five games are
against teams that made the playoffs in '97, and even after
a 4-12 season the schedule ranks as the league's second
toughest.
It doesn't get any uglier than
that. —David Fleming
By the Numbers | Inside Slant | Lineup
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