Two former Bears slighted with one all-quarter century team

Urlacher didn’t make as many Pro Bowls but did make eight and that honor is nothing but a popularity contest, anyway, like winning a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award. Urlacher did it on the field when it mattered.

The numbers speak for themselves on how the MMQB team botched this one.

The only widely recognized Bears player on the first team was Devin Hester as punt returner. His Hall of Fame status as a return man wrote him the ticket and he also got third team as a kick returner, the one thing he was known best for because of the Super Bowl return in February of 2007. However, there’s no doubt his punt returning was better as an NFL record 14 TD returns say.

Urlacher and Hester are the only two Bears draft picks on the list, as others from Chicago on it were free agent acquisitions who had brief Chicago stays.

The strange thing about the special teams voting was Dante Hall made No. 1 kick returner over second-teamer Cordarrelle Patterson, a former Bears player for two seasons. Hall had six TD returns to Patterson’s nine. Hall had a 23.8-yard kick return average to Patterson’s 29.0. In fact Hall never even had a single season averaging 26.0 yards a kick return. And Patterson has the best career kick return average since the AFL-NFL merger, or since Gale Sayers.

Further testifying to the failure of Bears drafting over the past quarter century is lack of any other first-team Chicago players beyond Julius Peppers, who was definitely deserving and  better known for his years in Carolina when he played 154 of his 266 games.

Former Bears edge rushers Khalil Mack and Jared Allen made it, Mack on the second team and Allen the third. Mack played four years for the Bears, including three of his least productive seasons. Allen, more of a Vikings and Chiefs player, played 18 games for Chicago.

A current Bears player is on the third team at guard, but Joe Thuney has yet to play a snap for the Bears after making his name with New England and Kansas City.

Maybe MMQB will get it all right in another 25 years.