Since the Jaguars’ inception in 1995, they and the Bears have been strikingly — alarmingly? — similar.
It’s easy to laugh at the Jaguars this week as they flop around at 1-13 hoping to win as few games as possible and get the top pick in the draft, but the Bears haven’t been much better over the last 25 years. In fact, the teams are more alike than those working in Halas Hall would prefer to believe. That point truly crystalized when the Jaguars turned to Mike Glennon last month to complete a bizarre circle of terrible quarterbacks between the two teams. The Bears signed Glennon to a three-year, $45 million deal in 2017, then drafted Mitch Trubisky No.2 overall. Glennon played four games, then got cut at the end of the season. It was such a laughable signing that defensive tackle Akiem Hicks used it as a punch line this year when asked about the Bears snubbing Colin Kaepernick. “We signed Mike Glennon,” Hicks replied. Glennon bounced to the Cardinals and Raiders the next two seasons before the Jaguars decided a player who had been cut or not re-signed by his last three teams could help them. Sounds crazy, right? Yes, it does. But it also sounds painfully familiar. The Bears finally lost patience with Trubisky at the end of last season and went looking for an upgrade.
