Brass plays blind to bungling Bears

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LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- The one visual I will take away from Monday's first-half postmortem at Halas Hall is the nodding head of Chicago Bears coach Marc Trestman.

About a half-hour into a 42-minute conversation among Chicago reporters, Bears general manager Phil Emery and Trestman -- one that danced around fundamental problems and connected on hard truths -- Emery was answering a question about linebacker Shea McClellin and his odd fit as an NFL player.

Now, McClellin gets quite a beating around these parts, from opposing offenses, fans, reporters, you name it.

His muffler guy probably takes advantage of him. He's happily paid extra for undercoating.

But McClellin is Emery's initial first-round pick, and the Boise State product has been demoted from a pass-rushing defensive end to a guy posing as a starting strongside linebacker. Next stop is his own show on ESPN Boise.

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McClellin is the face of institutional failure and a willful ignorance of the truth.

But here's Emery on his guy:

"The most difficult thing for Shea has been the two times he's started to roll -- he had the big game against Green Bay two years ago, a year ago, then he got hurt and never got rolling that way again," Emery said. "Had a good game against San Francisco, really finally figured out the play-action stuff, the reverse, the receivers running underneath the formation -- 'Hey, that means boot, I'm back.' He took away about three or four routes that game, he leveraged the run against the option well, then he breaks his hand.