Angelo tinkers with stinker GM gives Bears veterans the ax, and fans don't have much to cheer about

As I was walking up the drive from the parking lot at Halas Hallon Tuesday, I nearly was run over by a speeding car headed the otherdirection.

OK, maybe I wasn't nearly run over.

And maybe I should have been on the grass and not the pavement,anyway.

And maybe the car was moving, shall we say, crisply, rather thanspeeding.

But it for sure was Bobby Engram in the car with, I'm guessing,his wife, and he was gettin' out of Dodge with full-throttlealacrity.

Inside Halas Hall, Bears general manager Jerry Angelo, therecently acquired, skinny, salt-and-pepper-haired, blue-eyed CaptainAdios, was telling us that high-priced, seemingly worthwhile veteransEngram, Clyde Simmons and Thomas Smith all were former Bears.

These men--like Cade McNown, Mike Wells and Curtis Enis beforethem--would be taking the highway to somewhere else.

Maybe Engram, the gutsy sixth-year wide receiver out of Penn Statewho battled back from a serious knee injury, was halfway to whereverthe next place is even as Angelo spoke.

Since I've seen so many of these grim, double-speaking launchingparties before, I became almost bleary-eyed as the pre-packaged wordsrolled off the GM's tongue.

OK, uh, we made some decisions,'' Angelo had begun somewhatpromisingly, if for no other reason than that using a word likedecision'' means that a crossroads has been reached and a directionmust be taken.

Swiftly came the usual plethora of pablum: great respect,'' highlycompetitive,'' wasn't going to be an integral part,'' breathingroom,'' put the best product on the field,'' what's best for ourteam right now.''

And, yes, the final cigar-ash flick in every released player'scoffin: We wish him well.''

I think that was said specifically of erstwhile Bears cornerbackSmith, who was highly paid and not very good--a mistake by anytalent evaluation--but it could have gone for anybody.

The statement I liked most from Captain Adios was this, for itsclarity, at least: Thomas [Smith] is a square peg in a round hole.''

My God, are not the Bears themselves a hexagonal septic field?

The Bears stink.

Everybody knows that.

If you fired the entire squad and re-signed a team made up ofwaiver acquisitions, Arena League all-stars, weight-room freaks,quasi-reformed serial killers and hungry farm boys, you probablywouldn't be that much harmed for it.

Coach Dick Jauron is as close to a dead man walking as Sean Pennwas in that dull movie with Susan Sarandon.

Angelo, if he were brutally, dangerously honest, would tell usthat the highly paid vets have been canned because they make too muchmoney, the Bears' recent draft choices (except for Brian Urlacher)have stunk, the old Bears management was nuts, the team reeks andwhat difference does any of it make?

He can't say that, and I understand.

But we, the fans, know what's up.

Five years without a winning record means even an idiot could haveput the Bears pretty much where they are right now. Which is tosay, on the bottom, receiving a D'' grade from ESPN The Magazine inits recent NFL preview, the report finishing with these definingwords: Not nearly enough horses to play with the big boys thisseason.''

This season already is lost.

We all know that.

Angelo went on with some blather about not wanting just to be 8-8this season, and I found myself marveling that he could speak socavalierly of the great joy of being so much as average, that .500 isa dream season compared to expectations for these woeful Bears.

I mean, the whole thing, all of it, is a kind of inside joke.

Anybody can win in the NFL.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has made parity a crusade, riggingthings so that an NFL organization has to be filled--and I meanloaded from janitor to chairman--with morons not to randomly finditself deep into the playoffs.

Injured wide receiver Marcus Robinson talked to us media ghoulsabout the canning of respected veterans such as Engram.

It's a business, too,'' Robinson said, for those of us who thoughtit might be solely a sport, or perhaps a picnic. I think there areonly four people, including myself, who have been here since '97.''

It was shortly after noon and I was hungry--it being lunchtime forherd animals--and I found myself thinking that the Bears were not allthat much different from a restaurant.

Both enterprises must try to give the public that which it needsand, at times, craves, and do it well while in competition with otherbusinesses that do pretty much the same thing.

The difference is, if a restaurant stinks, it goes out ofbusiness.

Or, at the very least, it shutters its doors and hangs out a signthat reads, CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS.''

Why can't the Bears have such decency?