20 odd years ago....after the Bears had won their first and ONLY Super Bowl......instead of trying to retain their best talent who desired better paychecks..... the Bears, whose front office was then ruled by Mike McCaskey the son of Virginia McCaskey (George Halas' daughter).....decided he had to save even more of his hundreds of millions of dollars. Wilbur Marshall to the Skins, Richard Dent to the 49ers, Willie Gault to the Raiders I believe.....one by one....a bunch of excellent players were allowed to leave, with little or no serious effort to retain them.
The Coach, Mike Ditka, heroically, stuck to the front office's side....proclaiming....'Hell, when we lose a player...we'll just plug someone else into that spot...and keep going...'
After just "Plugging someone else into" enough spots for a few years .....the Bears were in a downward spiral...Ditka got himself famously, humiliatingly fired at a large press conference....and after a few more ever-downward years...even Mike McCaskey, who as the son of the owner, wasn't going to fire himself...stepped aside to let someone else run the team.
Before we get to canonizing TT just yet, ....one has to remember the hits...but also the misses. TT has swung on so many draft picks, trading down to get more lower picks...he's bound to have a few hits, yet also a few misses. Hawk was a number 5 pick in the draft, but he's hardly an impact player or game changer. Jennings was a number 2, but so was Brian Brohm, who couldn't even play in the NFL. In 2007 The Pack was aiming for Marshawn Lynch out of Cal....the Bills knew this and traded up to #16 to get him. The TT chose Justin Harrell, who also couldn't even play in the NFL. Brandon Jackson, another scrub, out of Nebraska was taken in order to be the feature back at a number 2 pick as well. He's also gone. Matt Flynn, taken at #7, the same year TT rated Brohm as a number 2...actually developed into a serviceable back-up. And now even he's gone..... for nothing.
And then there's TT penchant for sticking with players he "loves" (take that any way you want)....the most famous being Darryn Colledge...an OG, who to me, at least LOOKS like the prototypical NFL OG, yet is so slow to see changes and react to them on the field ...it's almost goofy. He's kind of fast...and that saves him sometimes...but he's not anyone you can depend on on every play not to blow it. TT stuck with that guy for what 4 years? And yep...he's also a number 2. He's with the Cardinals now, where he still is regarded as a journeyman....as well as a number 2 draft pick.
There are good guys still out there. I say, make a move...or someone else will...