It’s hard to decide whether it would’ve been funnier for Mike Glennon to light up the Bears in his return to Soldier Field or to implode.
Glennon landed closer to the latter in the Bears’ 29-3 stomping of the Giants on Sunday. With coach Joe Judge wary of allowing Glennon to let it fly, he tried only 15 pass plays and stayed committed to a run-heavy offense even while trailing by 26 in the third quarter.
But Glennon being Glennon, 15 pass plays were enough to paint a disasterpiece.
He completed 4 of 11 throws for 24 yards with two interceptions for a 5.3 passer rating — the lowest by any quarterback this season with a minimum of 10 passes. He also was sacked four times, including two strip-sacks by outside linebacker Trevis Gipson for turnovers, which dropped his net passing output to minus-10 yards.
“It’s embarrassing,” Glennon said.
Not as embarrassing as general manager Ryan Pace being “fired up” to sign him to a three-year, $45 million contract and make him the Bears’ starter in 2017.
If you thought the Bears were abysmal and exasperating the last few seasons, imagine if they’d stuck with Glennon. Hard as it might be to conceive, this could be a million times worse.
That Glennon is still in the NFL is a mystery of the modern world. He keeps getting jobs despite never proving to be a viable quarterback, and he has amassed nearly $32 million in salary, with more than half of that coming from the contract Pace gave him.
The continuation of Glennon’s career is so confounding that in 2020, when asked about Colin Kaepernick being blackballed, Bears defensive lineman Akiem Hicks blurted out, “We signed Mike Glennon.”
Glennon also faced the Bears last season while playing for the Jaguars and completed 24 of 37 passes for 211 yards with two touchdown passes and two interceptions for a 75.4 passer rating in a 41-17 Bears victory.
Montgomery’s pick
The Bears pounded the Giants so decisively that coach Matt Nagy and the players all had a good chuckle afterward about running back David Montgomery throwing an interception at the goal line in the fourth quarter.
Under most other circumstances, everything about it would’ve been galling, but when you’ve been eliminated from the playoffs for weeks and you’re already up by 26 points, who cares?
Montgomery took the snap out of the wildcat on fourth-and-four at the Giants’ 9-yard line with 1:42 left and didn’t get nearly enough air under his pass to tight end Cole Kmet in the end zone, leaving an easy pick for Giants linebacker Tae Crowder.
“That’s been in the incubator for a few weeks,” Nagy said. “The guys are razzing him, all the running backs. Cole came over, and he was razzing him. That’s one of those plays that can be really good or it can be really bad.”
O-line shuffle
Veteran left tackle Jason Peters returned after missing two games because of an ankle injury, and Nagy started him over rookie Teven Jenkins. Jenkins replaced Peters midway through the fourth quarter.
At right tackle, Nagy went with rookie Larry Borom over veteran Germain Ifedi. Ifedi started last week against the Sea-hawks, but Borom also got some snaps at left tackle when Jenkins left with a shoulder injury.
