Every so often, former Bears quarterback Erik Kramer is reminded that he still holds the team’s record for passing yards in a season with 3,838 in 1995. But it’s almost never in a complimentary way.
‘‘I woke up in the middle of the night [recently], and on ‘SportsCenter,’ Ryan Clark was talking about how the Bears have never had a 4,000-yard passer,’’ Kramer said with a chuckle. ‘‘So what’s really remembered is that. That’s how everybody talks about it. I guess I’m the guy who’s come the closest.’’
Indeed, he is. That Kramer’s franchise records of 3,838 yards and 29 touchdown passes in 1995 still stand 29 years later is a testament to the Bears’ quarterback ignominy. The Bears, in fact, are the only team in the NFL that never has had a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards or 30 touchdowns in a season.
(Technically, the expansion Browns haven’t had a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards or 30 touchdowns, either. Baker Mayfield passed for 3,827 yards in 2019 and 27 touchdowns in 2018. But the NFL allowed the Browns to keep the records of the original franchise that moved to Baltimore, so Brian Sipe’s 4,132 yards and 30 touchdowns in 1980 stand as the official franchise marks. Still, the expansion Browns were born in 1999; the Bears were born in 1920.)
Since 1995, Kramer’s 3,838 passing yards have been eclipsed 245 times by 68 quarterbacks. His 29 touchdown passes have been eclipsed 120 times by 42 quarterbacks. But none of them was a Bear.
Truth be told, Jay Cutler certainly would have broken Kramer’s yardage record — and possibly his touchdown record — in 2014, when he threw for 3,812 yards and 28 touchdowns in 15 games. But therein lies a huge part of the problem: Dysfunction cost Cutler the record when embattled coach Marc Trestman inexplicably benched him in Week 16 in favor of Jimmy Clausen.
After a one-week benching, Cutler started the season finale against the Vikings at TCF Bank Stadium but fell 27 yards and two touchdowns shy of breaking Kramer’s records when he threw for 172 yards and no touchdowns in a dreadful 13-9 loss. A day later, Trestman and general manager Phil Emery were fired after a 5-11 season.
Cutler’s eight-year tenure with the Bears is an even greater illustration of the team’s chronic quarterback misery. General manager Jerry Angelo’s trade for Cutler in 2009 (for two first-round draft picks and quarterback Kyle Orton) elicited a giddy celebration in Chicago.
Cutler was coming off a Pro Bowl season at 25 in 2008, when he threw for 4,526 yards — breaking Jake Plummer’s franchise record — and 25 touchdowns for the Broncos. Finally, the Bears had the franchise quarterback they had been looking for since the days of Sid Luckman.
But the results were all-too-typically underwhelming. In eight seasons with the Bears (2009-16), Cutler’s passer rating was 85.2. He averaged 2,930 passing yards and 19.3 touchdown passes per season. His average league rankings were middling at best: 16.6 in passer rating (never higher than 13th), 19.1 in passing yards (never higher than 13th) and 16.6 in touchdowns (tied for eighth in 2009). The most prolific quarterback in Bears history — Cutler holds franchise records with 23,443 yards and 154 touchdown passes — was 51-51 as a starter.
In, then out
For rookie quarterback Caleb Williams — whose arrival in Chicago was as ballyhooed as Cutler’s, if not more so — the Cutler Experience presents the true challenge: Even the best Bears quarterbacks (and QB prospects) since Luckman ultimately have disappointed.
That includes Jim McMahon, the QB of the Bears’ only Super Bowl championship team. Though never prolific (he averaged 169.7 passing yards per game with the Bears), McMahon was a phenomenal 46-15 as a starter. But he couldn’t stay healthy, starting only 61 regular-season games from 1982 to 1988.
In fact, Cutler, who started 102 games for the Bears, is the only quarterback in franchise history to start more than 65 games. Jim Harbaugh, who ranks second on the Bears’ all-time list for passing yards (11,567), started 65 games. Mitch Trubisky, who is fourth on the all-time list, started 50. Kramer, who is fifth on the all-time list, started 46.
Harbaugh, who replaced McMahon as the Bears’ starting quarterback, was ninth in the NFL in passer rating in 1990 (81.9) and ninth in passing yards (3,121) and touchdown passes (15) in 1991. The Bears signed him to a four-year, $13 million contract in 1993, and he is the last quarterback drafted by the Bears to earn a second long-term contract.
But it didn’t last long. After Harbaugh struggled under first-year coach Dave Wannstedt in 1993 — seven touchdown passes, 11 interceptions and a 72.1 passer rating that ranked 21st in the league — he was cut. The Bears signed Kramer to a three-year, $8.1 million contract in free agency.
‘‘We want you to be the guy to lead the Bears back to glory,’’ Kramer said was Wannstedt’s pitch in his recently published book, ‘‘The Ultimate Comeback,’’ which details his battle to overcome depression.
Though he was neither a first-round draft pick (he was undrafted out of N.C. State in 1987) nor a celebrated free agent, Kramer’s up-and-down tenure with the Bears also stands as a tale of their quarterback woes.
In 1994, Kramer was fourth in the NFL in passer rating through three games (107.5) but suffered a separated shoulder when the Vikings’ John Randle sacked him in Week 4.
He returned in Week 8 but was never the same and lost his starting job to Steve Walsh, who led the Bears to the playoffs.
In 1995, Kramer beat out Walsh for the starting job and had his franchise-record season. He was fourth in the NFL in passer rating (93.5), seventh in yards (3,838) and fourth in touchdown passes (29). But the Bears finished 9-7 and lost a tiebreaker for the final playoff spot to the Falcons.
In 1996, with high hopes coming off his breakout season, Kramer got off to a horrid start: one touchdown pass and five interceptions and passer ratings of 44.2, 57.0 and 37.4 in a victory against the Cowboys and losses to the Redskins and Vikings. He then suffered a neck injury in a loss to the Lions that required hospitalization and was put on injured reserve, ending his season.
Consistently inconsistent
Bears quarterbacks have been beset by misfortune, including ill-timed injuries, bad supporting casts, bad defenses and subpar coaching. But Kramer’s experience featured another twist: He was suffering from depression, taking antidepressants and going through counseling.
‘‘During the 1995 season and the first couple of months of the offseason, I learned two invaluable lessons about my depression: 1) It could flip on and off like a switch, and 2) I didn’t control the switch,’’ Kramer wrote in his book.
That and the injuries contributed to his inconsistent performance, he said.
‘‘If you’re a Bears fan and wondered why I was so lousy [in 1996] after putting up such noteworthy numbers the year before, now you know,’’ Kramer wrote in his book. ‘‘It was the first time I’d ever played with full-blown depression.’’
Kramer recovered from the potentially career-ending neck injury to play in 15 games in 1997. In 1998, however, he suffered injuries to his left knee and shoulder that ended his season after eight games.
He returned with the expectation of starting in 1999, even though the Bears had taken UCLA’s Cade McNown with the No. 8 pick in the draft. But in typically odd Halas Hall fashion, the Bears surprisingly cut Kramer on the eve of training camp, leaving their quarterback position in the hands of McNown, Shane Matthews, Jim Miller and Moses Moreno, who had a combined two NFL starts on their résumés.
Kramer, not surprisingly was stunned by the move, miffed that the Bears would put that much faith in McNown.
‘‘If you’re a parent and your 14-year-old kid comes home with a straight-A report card, that doesn’t mean you give him the keys to the car,’’ he said that day.
The McNown episode was a disaster from the start. After the Bears had cut Kramer, McNown missed the first 11 days of training camp as a contract holdout. He was confident and cocky but also immature, with an approach to his job that turned off many teammates.
McNown had a couple of moments — four touchdown passes in a 28-10 victory against the Lions at Soldier Field as a rookie in 1999 and two touchdown passes in a 27-24 victory against the Packers at Lambeau Field in 2000 — but his success didn’t last long.
Neither did he. After missing six weeks with a separated shoulder and the 2000 season all but over at 4-10, McNown started in Week 16 at the 49ers and was a disaster. He went 9-for-29 for 73 yards and a 26.1 passer rating as the Bears’ offense never crossed midfield in a dispiriting 17-0 loss. While rust was a factor, McNown’s ill-preparedness after the layoff irked some teammates.
That was the last game McNown started. He played the second half of a 23-20 victory against the Lions in the season finale, but the Bears had seen enough. McNown was traded to the Dolphins during training camp in 2001 and never played in the NFL again.
Is eight finally enough?
The Harbaugh-Kramer-McNown run in the post-McMahon era of Bears quarterbacks is a story of disappointment and dysfunction that unfortunately isn’t unique. Including trades for Rick Mirer and Cutler, the Bears have invested eight first-round draft picks in quarterbacks since 1997 — drafting McNown (1999), Rex Grossman (No. 22 in 2003), Trubisky (No. 2 in 2017), Justin Fields (No. 11 in 2021) and now Williams (No. 1 in 2024) — with little to show for it.
‘‘It’s kind of strange in a way,’’ Kramer said. ‘‘Why haven’t they found that guy? I don’t know. But they’ve had some bad drafts. Drafted the wrong guy a lot of times — over and over and over and over.’’
But Kramer sees the tide turning with Williams. A former Lion, Kramer compares the Bears’ potential under third-year general manager Ryan Poles with the Lions’ turnaround in three years with general manager Brad Holmes — from 3-13 to 9-8 to 12-5 with a playoff victory (the first since Kramer beat the Cowboys 38-6 in 1992).
‘‘I believe they’ve got the right guy for a long time [in Williams],’’ Kramer said. ‘‘And they’re not going to have just one guy, they’re going to have guys at every position that are the right guys.
‘‘I watched that interview [during the Hall of Fame Game] with [Bears president] Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles — those are two very impressive guys. Not only the people they are, but the people that work underneath them. I couldn’t be more impressed.’’
And as much as the quarterback is king in the NFL, Kramer knows all too well that it starts at the top.
‘‘I have nothing but fond memories and good things to say about Dave Wannstedt,’’ Kramer said. ‘‘I know Dave and that staff [with the Bears]. I don’t know what the perception of them is [in Chicago], but had we had this current regime with that coaching staff, we’d have won a couple of Super Bowls. No doubt.’’