Windy City Gridiron
When I was bumbling around on Twitter/X the other day, I came across this one tweet that caught my eye.
Celtics Shaq. That one Kevin Garnett Brooklyn Nets edit to “Outstanding” by The Gap Band. However you want to refer to it, it’s a term that refers to a big-name athlete playing for a new team past their prime.
I was thinking about responding to this tweet, but I couldn’t decide on just one person to pick for the Bears. When you’re the oldest team in the NFL, you’re going to have your fair share of big names on the roster, even if those big names weren’t all in their prime when they played for Chicago.
As a fun trip down memory lane before the new season, here are a few former Chicago Bears players in the 21st century with tremendous peaks who suited up for the team past their prime.
When the Bears signed Jared Allen to a four-year deal in 2014, expectations were very high. He was just coming off of an 11.5-sack season in Minnesota, and he had reached a double-digit sack total in seven consecutive seasons to that point. Considering how bad Chicago’s defense was in 2013, Allen was meant to serve as a major upgrade for their pass rush.
Unfortunately, things didn’t play out the way either side had hoped. Allen dealt with a bout of pneumonia early in the season that saw him lose 18 pounds. That surely put a damper on his level of play, and he finished the year with 5.5 sacks. That had been the lowest total of his career to that point.
Once the Bears changed from a 4-3 base defense to a 3-4 in 2015, the writing was on the wall. Allen played three games in 2015 and got traded to Carolina soon after. He joked about his stint in Chicago during his Hall of Fame induction speech recently, so there are clearly no hard feelings. Given how tremendous his career was and given his recent enshrinement into Canton, I like to think that things ended up okay for him in the end.
Perhaps best known as the Steelers’ savior in their Super Bowl XLIII victory, Santonio Holmes made quite the name for himself for his stellar play in Pittsburgh. After spending four years there and another four years with the Jets, Holmes signed a one-year contract with the Bears in 2014.
At that time, they had a dominant wide receiver duo in Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall but lacked a formidable third wide receiver. The hope was that Holmes could provide that stability, even if his numbers weren’t as strong at that stage as they were in his prime. He ended up starting early in the season but slowly saw his role cut down, playing in just nine games before he was released. He ended the year with just eight receptions for 67 yards.
Victor Cruz...
