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More hell on wheels
Orton carted off field in fresh QB drama, and are we surprised?

November 3, 2008
BY RICK TELANDER Sun-Times Columnist


If the Bears didn't have a quarterback problem, they wouldn't know what to do.

If the world gives them lemonade at that position, they will find a way to make lemons.

And so just before halftime of their 27-23 win over the neutered Detroit Lions at Soldier Field, the Bears saw their quarterback legacy, their birthright to always be screwed up at the helm, enter quietly from the north end of the lakefront stadium.

It came in the form of a green, six-wheeled, motorized cart, the one with the little black tires and bright yellow rims and the flat-bed just behind the driver's seat.

Into this cart was deposited Kyle Orton, the Bears' rising quarterback for the last seven games, the quiet former backup with the patchy neckbeard who had been doing so well as a new starter. Orton's lower right leg and ankle had just been twanged very far the wrong way on a rollover, mop-up tackle by 273-pound defensive end Dewayne White in front of the Lions' bench.

Orton had staggered to his feet, hobbled a few paces across the field, then dropped down on his back near the ''30'' chalk marking, putting his hands to his helmeted face like a man in pain and despair.

''Our starter went down with an injury,'' Bears coach Lovie Smith said after the game. ''That's never good.''

No, it isn't.

But it's not unexpected here in the land of 33-quarterbacks-in-the-last-quarter-century.

Doesn't look pretty

Orton had started 12 games in three years before this season, but it was his maturity and development as a field leader since he won the starting job from Rex Grossman at the end of this preseason that made him seem special.

Maybe his unspecified lower-leg injury is of the quick-healing variety. But as I stood in the tunnel outside the Bears' locker room, well after the game had ended, chatting with Bears punter Brad Maynard, discussing his odd, 12-yard shank late in the fourth quarter (''Wow -- I don't remember one that bad,'' he said), another golf cart came by.

Orton was in this new one. There was elastic wrapping on his lower right leg. He was being driven off to somewhere else.

Somehow, his injury didn't strike this observer as an ice-pack/hot-tub sort of thing.

But who can say?

Our old buddy Rex Grossman came in for Orton in the second half, and, though he was booed on a regular basis, it was Rex who actually led the Bears to this sloppy, hard-to-quantify win. Maybe ''led'' isn't the right word. Maybe ''didn't-screw-it-up'' is.

As you might guess, Grossman was up and down and all over the place. He completed 9 of 19 passes for 58 yards, a touchdown, an interception and a puny 49.9 quarterback rating.

He flung the ball way downfield and incomplete, as he is wont to do. And he missed short, open routes on occasion, as he also does.

But he threw a six-yard touchdown pass to wideout Rashied Davis, and he plowed across the goal line on a one-yard keeper late in the fourth quarter for the go-ahead touchdown, and that counts for something. Counts for a lot, actually. It had been more than four years since he'd run a ball in. And a come-from-behind win is always special.

It wasn't by accident that the former Super Bowl starter-turned-pariah emerged from the pile, ran into a clear area and spiked the ball after a major-league wind up.

''The last couple months have been tough,'' Grossman admitted postgame.

Titans aren't the Lions

But he praised Orton, saying, ''I think Kyle is the reason we're 5-3.''

That was nice, team-first and all. And in truth, the Bears are lucky to have Grossman in reserve.

We can hope that part of the reason he looked shaky was because, as he noted, all week long in practice, ''I was Dan Orlovsky.''

That's the Lions quarterback, who has his own problems.

But now the killer-defense Titans come to town Sunday, and they ain't a practice squad.

''I'm still hopeful Kyle will be able to come back soon,'' Smith said. Who isn't? But players come and go in this league, and you must adjust.

''It's a tough game,'' affirmed little Davis, who got clocked real good himself by a Detroit linebacker. ''It's football.''

Lions coach Rod Marinelli gave his description of what happens to the Bears offense when Grossman comes in: ''It's basically the same thing, just a different guy.''

You expect insight from a man who's 0-8?

But as Grossman himself put it when asked if he thought he'd see playing time this year, ''Odds are two quarterbacks are going to play some.''

Then he added, ''Especially here in Chicago.''

Don't we know. Haven't we seen.
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