Bears All-Time offensive unit would've given Matt Nagy some interesting – VERY interesting — options

With the approach of the Bears’ 100th Anniversary weekend and then season, the time is at hand for compiling “all-time” lists. Hall of Fame Bears writers Don Pierson and Dan Pompei set the bar with their list of 100 best Bears of all time, others have followed, and an extension of that is now to narrow that list into all-time teams on both offense and defense, making picks within the list of picks.

Because the Bears are a franchise largely defined by defense, certainly in the cases of its last two NFL championships of 1963 and 1985, this writer and NBC Sports Chicago went with the all-time defense first.

But giving offense short shrift is not going to happen. This is also the franchise that thrilled the nation with its T-formation. It reached a Super Bowl with Rex Grossman as its quarterback. It won games in 2016 with Jay Cutler, Brian Hoyer and Matt Barkley as starting quarterbacks (those, of course, were the ONLY games the team won that year, but a win is a win and a Matt Barkley is still a Matt Barkley). So the Bears are not without at least some offensive majesty.

Kidding aside, forgotten in the coronation of the ’85 Bears’ defense is too often the fact that the ’85 Bears led the NFC in scoring and were second only to Dan Fouts and the San Diego Chargers in the NFL. The offense in fact bailed out the defense in the two wins over lowly Tampa Bay that season.

The ’40 defense gets credit for the “0” points scored against Washington in the championship game, and for returning three of eight interceptions for touchdowns. While all that was going on, the offense was scoring 52 points and piling up 501 total yards.

So the Bears offense has achieved greatness of its own, the occasional Dowell Loggains, John Shoop or Mike Tice notwithstanding.

To that end, this writer compiled an all-time offensive unit as pat of a 2007 project. This was the All-Time Offense team on the initial pass-through as part of “The 100 Best Chicago Sports Arguments” back in 2007:

QB   Sid Luckman
RB   Walter Payton/Gale Sayers
FB    Bronko Nagurski
TE    Mike Ditka
LT    Jimbo Covert
LG    Stan Jones
C      (tie) Jay Hilgenberg/Olin Kreutz
RG   Danny Fortmann
RT    Joe Stydahar
WR  Johnny Morris

With the benefit of hindsight (and Youtube), the changes to that list include…absolutely no one. Well, one. Sorta.

Part of the reason is because the offenses of the Chicago Bears over the dozen years since putting together that list have included so few stars, certainly none good enough to win a position-challenge against the name ahead of them on the original mythical depth chart. 

That said, here is the look at the reasoning behind the selections, then and now.

QB   Sid Luckman

Only one Bears quarterback is enshrined in the Hall of Fame: Luckman. (Jay Cutler will be eligible in 2022 but Luckman seems pretty safe, for now – that was a joke.) Jim McMahon is the only other contender, and for a single game, Luckman-or-McMahon might be a discussion.

But McMahon threw for more than 300 yards in a game just once in his career, a loss. Luckman did it three times, all wins. Luckman was All-Pro five times and his Bears won four NFL championships. McMahon’s won one. 

RB   Walter Payton-Gale Sayers

The only debate would be which of the two is the greatest single running back. Since this unit is operating out of a two-back set, and Sayers was so adept at receiver that thought at one time was given to making him a wide receiver to get him in space. Defending this backfield tandem, featuring two of the top five Bears of all time, not possible. 

FB    Bronko Nagurski

The Fourth Horseman of the Bears warrants inclusion because Nagurski himself ranks as one of the five greatest Bears of all time, could throw, run and block like no other back in Bears history, save Payton.

For a what-if brain teaser here, what would Matt Nagy have devised if he pulls into Halas Hall one Monday morning and GM Ryan Pace says, “Hey, Matt, I made some personnel moves – got cha’ these three guys – Payton, Nagurski and Sayers. Hope ya’ can figure out how to use ‘em.” 

TE    Mike Ditka

Next question. 

RT    Joe Stydahar

The difficult call here was over Keith Van Horne, the most underrate of the ’85 Bears linemen. To wit: The Bears played six combined games against Philadelphia and Oakland teams that had Reggie White and Howie Long, respectively, as their left defensive ends. The Bears won six. The guy blocking Long and White: Van Horne.

But Stydahar (a left tackle but the better run blocker, so shifting to RT the way Van Horne did after the Bears drafted him out of USC), the first-ever Bears draft choice, was All-NFL for the four years ending with the 73-0 game, gave his 1943-44 seasons in WWII service to his country, then came back to win another NFL title in 1946. 

RG   Danny Fortmann

Stydahar finished No. 3 in the 1939 All-NFL voting. No. 2 that year was Fortmann, who spanned eras and was All-NFL six straight years from 1938-43, which means blocking for the pre- and T-formation Bears offenses. Talking to members of the great Bears teams of that era revealed how almost universally Fortmann was regarded internally as the best offensive lineman, this from a group that included Stydahar, Bulldog Turner and George Musso. Musso checks in as one of the defensive all-timers, and Stydahar was just covered.

More on the guard situation shortly. 

C      Jay Hilgenberg

Turner was arguably the most physical center outside of “Brute” Trafton, and Turner certainly was a better linebacker than either Hilgenberg or Kreutz. But Turner was not a better or tactician or technician than either, with Hilgenberg rating a slight edge for use of leverage in run blocking and Kreutz getting the nod for pass-pro with perhaps the NFL’s quickest set-and-punch of his era.

The initial call was a tie between Hilgenberg and Kreutz. But Hilgenberg earns the starting job here with one more Pro Bowl (seven) than Kreutz, and five All-Pro honors to one for Kreutz.

LG    Stan Jones

The calls on both guard spots were difficult, largely because the franchise has not wanted for great interior linemen. Ray Bray and others would start on many other all-franchise teams. The closest call here was, however, Kyle Long, a massive true athlete voted to Pro Bowls his first three NFL seasons, including one after a last-minute jump to right tackle. The Bears averaged 376.4 yards of offense in the eight 2018 games in which Long played; they managed just 311 in the eight he didn’t.

But Jones, the man who revolutionized the NFL’s thinking on the importance of strength training, was a tackle when he came to the Bears, switched to guard and was selected to seven Pro Bowls and All-Pro three times. 

LT    Jimbo Covert

Richard Dent, the Bears’ Hall of Fame defensive end, once told this writer, “After practicing against Jimbo, games were easy.” Covert’s career ended prematurely from a back injury but not before he was named the left tackle for the NFL’s 1980’s Team of the Decade, ahead of Lomas Brown, Joe Jacoby and Gary Zimmerman.

Both Covert and RT Stydahar were No. 6-overall picks of their respective drafts.  

WR  Johnny Morris

With a huddle that includes Ditka, Payton and Sayers, no more than one wideout makes the all-offense Bears.

No Bear has more career receiving yards (5,059) than Morris, and only running backs Payton and Forte have more than Morris’ 356 career receptions. Considering that he played the first three of his 10 year in 12-game seasons and the other seven at 14 games, and was consigned to running back his first three seasons –

Morris rates an easy call over a Dennis McKinnon, Curtis Conway, Alshon Jeffery or Brandon Marshall. Morris was recruited as a track star to UC-Santa Barbara and was possessed of sufficient speed to average 14.2 yards per reception in an era when receivers were bumped off more than just their routes.