Prior to the 1996 season, coming off a 9-7 year and near-miss of the playoffs, then-coach Dave Wannstedt didn’t back away from how he felt about the coming year:
“All the pieces are in place,” he told Chicago Tribune writer Don Pierson.
And they might have been, for maybe three weeks, before quarterback Erik Kramer was lost to what was effectively a broken neck. The pieces ended up in, well, pieces.
Bears quarterback Jay Cutler is not issuing a full declaration that the pieces are again in place. But with the return of Pro Bowl guards Kyle Long and Josh Sitton, nickel receiver Eddie Royal, plus presumably nose tackle Eddie Goldman and cornerback Bryce Callahan on the defensive side, Cutler knows something of how Wannstedt was feeling.