There was a moment Sunday when Bears coach Marc Trestman was dangerously close to having to use wide receiver Earl Bennett as his quarterback.
But he said he intended to continue to go with just two of them on his roster, after losing starter Jay Cutler for a month with a torn groin muscle.
Not long after backup Josh McCown replaced Cutler against the Redskins, McCown had to get in the air to avoid a shot at his knees, which could have easily left the Bears without one.
“On the sideline, yeah, guys are like, ‘Hey!’ and you see them talking to Earl and kind of getting him ready,” McCown said, via Rich Campbell of the Chicago Tribune. “I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, there’s nobody else.’ It’s hard to manage that when you’re running, to think about Earl and that there’s nobody else. But it was a good reminder for me, and [I] tried to slide the rest of the time. It’s an interesting way to play, thinking I’ve got to stay healthy.”
The Bears signed Jordan Palmer to be McCown’s backup for the next few weeks, and Trestman said he was willing to gamble that would be enough.
“We’ll play the analytics there and go that route again to try to free up another player that can help us in some phase of our football,” Trestman said. “We were getting him [Bennett] ready. But Matt [Cavanaugh, quarterbacks coach] spends a little bit of time getting him ready each week. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got enough going for ourselves to be able to get through it. But that would’ve been a darn shame when Josh went out on the sideline early on.
“You’re asking yourself the question, ‘Could this be the day?’ You’re hoping it isn’t.”
While it’s debatable that one of the many fine quarterbacks on the street would be an upgrade over Bennett in the short-term, the Bears are still rolling the dice, and holding their breath.