Bernie Lincicome: Is Tom Brady's encore responsible for this quarterback movement?

In so unsettled a time as this, referring to the NFL off-season quarterback commotion as a "frenzy" is a bit overdone, something to keep headline writers alert, if such an occupation still exists.

But there it is, a "frenzy" is upon us, who is staying, who is going, who is coming back. Why, just yesterday I think it was, I was generously granting Tom Brady exit applause as the Greatest Of All Time, and while that remains true, Brady feels the need to take an encore, overfilling a cup that has seriously runneth over.

Brady is, after all, responsible for this trend that says anybody else's quarterback is better than yours, when he went from the Patriots to the Bucs to the Super Bowl, a pattern not lost on the Los Angeles Rams who used it to get Matthew Stafford from Detroit.

And what of our favorite Oaf of the North (OOTN as opposed to GOAT), the self-proclaimed landlord of Chicago and suburbs, he who owns us all, Aaron Rodgers remaining in Green Bay for as long as he can stand it.

I had already offered good riddance to Rodgers in anticipation of his moving on to brighter lights and bigger bucks, but, no, whatever attraction urban areas might offer, Rodgers has made peace with his one-horse legacy in Titletown, something Brett Favre could not do.

I had even suggested that maybe Rodgers might like to wrap up things with the Bears, being if he says so himself, proprietor in chief of the place already. If he thinks worship is worth anything in Wisconsin, he has no idea what it is for the next quarterback to succeed in Chicago.

Look at the unearned love for Justin Fields, clearly and lamentably the worst starting quarterback in all of football, including the Muskingum Valley League, where I once held that title myself. Still do, probably.

Rather than admit the mistake with Fields, the Bears thought and thought about it and decided to hire a new couple of thumbs to tip the scales until they are caught. From what is apparent so far with the new Ryan and Matt, they are undoing everything the old Ryan and Matt did, yet sticking with young Fields, while the rest of the NFL seems fixed on fixing their problems with someone else's quarterback.

That would involve Russell Wilson, a genuine prize, leaving Seattle for Denver, setting up all this nesting doll activity, each one getting smaller and smaller as the supply runs out.

It isn't as if the Bears have not tried this tactic themselves, picking over other's used laundry for, oh, Jay Cutler and Nick Foles and Andy Dalton, et.al., who were authentic elsewhere and woeful here.

Deciding that maybe it is not them, it is us, the Bears are giving Fields the same chance to fail they gave to Mitch Trubisky, who must be the luckiest underachiever who ever traipsed the industrial north from great lake to lesser lake to now Pittsburgh, a tough town with the toughest quarterback of his generation.

To follow Cutler is one thing - well, nothing, really - and yet to follow Ben Roethlisberger is a bigger thing, and good luck to Trubisky about whom it can always be said, "He did some good things, too."

Unless Roethlisberger decides to pull a Brady and give the game that crippled him another chance to finish the job, Trubisky will give us all the chance to compare him to Fields, as once we compared Trubisky to much more capable Patrick Mahomes and DeShaun Watson.

Ah, Watson. Wherever Watson goes, from Houston to any place eager to have him, he will take along his legal troubles, 22 civil suits from massage therapists, as well as a grand jury pass on criminal charges.

All of this may cause a league suspension for poor conduct, but eventually all will be forgiven if Watson is the quarterback he is supposed to be.

Meanwhile, there remains a quarterback of proven ability not included in the swirl, the frenzy, over Watson and Carson Wentz and Baker Mayfield and Matt Ryan and Jimmy Garoppolo and Jameis Winston, and that would be Colin Kaepernick, damned for a gesture.

One thing an NFL quarterback is not allowed to have is a conscience.