Soft? Evidence piling up

Not everyone can be wrong about Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, can they?

Well, no, not everybody can be. But somebody must be.

Bears management, including general manager Jerry Angelo and head coach Lovie Smith, expressed confidence in Grossman for five years.

Yet there's a trickle of others who were around Grossman during that time and then expressed other opinions.

Just before last season, former Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera supposedly told the Chargers, his new team, "that Rex was kind of a mental midget, so you can get into his head."

A year later it's former Bears wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad and former Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson echoing Rivera.

Johnson reportedly called Grossman soft, which isn't much different from what Rivera allegedly alleged.

Muhammad reportedly said the Bears' offense is "where receivers go to die," a condemnation of the offensive system or Grossman as a starting quarterback or both.

Muhammad likes to yap and Johnson isn't exactly the planet's most credible human.

At the same time, many Bears fans and members of the local media have lost confidence in Angelo and Smith's evaluations of Grossman.

I don't trust any of them on the subject anymore, not Muhammad or Johnson or Angelo or Smith or Grossman's other supporters or his other detractors.

All I can do after watching this quarterback those five seasons is trust my eyes.

To be honest, for a while a few developments fooled me into thinking Grossman could be a legitimate NFL quarterback.

Allow me to list them.

First, when Grossman initially received a chance to play late in his rookie season, he looked like he knew what he was doing.

I commented that Grossman saw the field as soon and as well as any young quarterback since maybe Jim McMahon two decades earlier.

Well, if that were remotely true, Grossman must have regressed dramatically in ensuing years.

Second, Grossman's teammates kept insisting he was a good quarterback with a chance to become even better.

Well, it appears either they were kidding us or kidding themselves.

Third, Grossman had that run of terrific performances during the first half of the 2006 season. He didn't maintain the pace, but the Bears did advance to the Super Bowl with him at quarterback.

Well, Grossman hasn't been that guy since, has he?

Over time it struck me - call it a head slap - that Grossman wasn't destined to be the quarterback management expected him to be and teammates indicated he would be.

Maybe Grossman is a legitimate NFL quarterback, but it seems more and more that it'll be as a backup somewhere.

Maybe that somewhere is here, considering Grossman has been reduced to competing for the starting job with Kyle Orton.

This isn't exactly like the Bears traded for Brett Favre and Grossman could be sitting behind him. This is Orton, who previously was buried on the bench whenever Grossman was healthy.

Anyway, the debate has come down to the likes of Angelo and Smith against the likes of Rivera, Johnson and Muhammad.

Maybe I'm the one who is wrong, but I shifted sides from the former to the latter.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me a fourth time, shame on me.

mimrem@dailyherald.com