For Bears fans, the QB wait goes on

Initial impressions came to mind Monday morning as the Bears introduced first-round draft choice Chris Williams.

First: Man, this guy is one big quarterback.

Second: Man-oh-man, this guy is still one big quarterback.

Third: Oh man, you mean this guy isn't even a quarterback?

No, Chris Williams is a 6-foot-6, 315-pound offensive tackle tabbed to protect quarterbacks -- as if the Bears had any.

Once that became clear, it was hard to not stare over to his right at an entrance to the auditorium in Halas Hall.

Remember when Rick Pitino said about a particularly bad Celtics team he coached, "Larry Bird isn't walking through that door. Kevin McHale isn't walking through that door. Robert Parish isn't walking through that door"?

The Bears haven't had a quarterback the past few decades whom it would be thrilling to see walk through any door.

Jim McMahon probably was the best, but not an all-pro much less a Hall of Famer. Jim Harbaugh isn't walking through that door? Moses flippin' Moreno isn't? Jim Miller isn't?

Thank goodness.

Until recently I was resigned to never seeing three things during my lifetime -- the Cubs in a World Series, the Blackhawks home games on TV and the Bears with a great quarterback.

Then the Hawks disrupted my resignation by starting to televise home games, a signal that anything is possible.

(Except, of course, the Cubs in a World Series.)

So I'm back to imagining the Bears can have a quality quarterback and he'll be my imaginary best friend.

He and I go out clubbing together. We double date. He lets me beat him at racquetball. We throw the old pigskin around in the backyard of his North Shore estate. I'm the best man both times he marries, first to Lindsay Lohan and then to Condoleezza Rice. He flies out to visit me in a Honolulu hospital after I'm injured winning the Ironman Triathlon. He gives me Bears tickets to scalp on the secondary market.

Then, just as he's explaining to me exactly what the secondary ticket market is, I wake up.

From there I'm back to thinking the least the Bears could do is draft a quarterback, any quarterback, just for appearances.

It doesn't have to be in the first round. One of their three-dozen seventh rounders would have indulged us just fine over the weekend.

The Bears wouldn't do that, so here's another idea: Draft a linebacker and tell us he's a quarterback. The perfect opportunity presented itself when they took Joey LaRocque with the draft's 243rd overall pick.

Joey LaRocque is a quarterback's name, isn't it? OK, maybe not, but it's at least a Hollywood name that fits an actor who could play a quarterback. Just list him there for now. Who would know? Move him back to linebacker in mini-camp. Who would notice?

Ah, but the best the Bears could do was sign a couple rookie free agent quarterbacks. By December, Soldier Field fans will chant for one to play ahead of Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton.

Anyway, after Williams' formal press conference he made the rounds for radio and TV interviews before getting back to us print mopes.

I left for home before he came around again. Sorry, I don't wait for offensive linemen.

But I do wait for a quarterback … decades after decade.