(DISCLAIMER: the free/strong safety designation means nothing here. A safety is a safety is a safety for these purposes, and I’m not far enough on the spectrum to differentiate right now)
THE GOOD: MARK CARRIER (1990-1996) – The 1990 draft was the first one I ever paid any real attention to, so I was really excited about this guy as a rookie, which was precisely the time period during which he exploded the entire goddamn league. He busted right out of the gate and led the league with ten interceptions, won Defensive Rookie of the Year, made the Pro Bowl, was on everybody’s All-Pro teams, and was really useful on Tecmo Super Bowl after using Mike Singletary on every play had made the game too easy. Thing is, such a statistically-rich season never happened again, and this led to the Internet Blood Libel of Mark Carrier being a guy who had one good year and sucked forever after that. This is all double-bullshit though, as he remained excellent, and just didn’t have quarterbacks trying to pick on the rookie (and failing miserably) anymore. As such, he made a couple more Pro Bowls and remained perhaps the only useful player to control on the default Bears roster in 1995’s Tecmo Super Bowl III. (Donnell Woolford had no hitting power, so running backs would just smear him, you see) So if you see anyone out in the streets badmouthing Mark Carrier, stab them. It’s okay, you’ll be okay, trust me. I am a scientist.
THE BAD: AL AFALAVA (2009) – Al Afalava was… A guy. Just a guy who was there. Since the dying years of the Lovie Smith regime, this has been a symptom of how things got so bad. Sometimes a highly-touted draft pick or an established free agent would shit the bed, and sometimes, a bunch of people would get injured, but other times, it really just felt like they just kind of forgot to to have a starter. They just wouldn’t bother to put together an NFL roster, and wouldn’t remember until Week One, and that’s how people like Al Afalava and Kevin Payne and Harold Jones-Quartey became NFL starters. Normally, if you draft a guy in the 6th round and he starts 13 games in his rookie season, you’ve found a diamond in the rough, and you’re not going to have to worry about that position for a long time, because you just found the Tom Brady of that position. In Al’s case, he became the starter because he was leaning a little further out on the bench than anyone else when Lovie Smith realized they had only one starting safety, and he was cut before the next season started. This was because he wasn’t a draft sleeper they somehow lucked into; he was just a guy. A guy who was there.
THE UGLY: ADAM ARCHULETA (2007) – God damn it. God fucking damn it, WHY? Adam Archuleta famously signed with the Washington R-words and Daniel Snydered his way into the richest contract a defensive player ever had, and then got cut after one year, because he sucked every ball and every ass while he was there. There were none left, look it up, it was crazy. Ah, but he was a Lovie Smith Guy from his days with the Rams, so certainly being back on a Lovie Smith Team would fix things, right? And his impending failure would certainly not instigate a cycle of doom for former Lovie Smith Guys signed to the Chicago Bears extending all the way to Mike Fucking Martz, right? So why not sign him, then trade away Chris Harris, your incumbent starter, who was both really good and twenty-five years old? GRAAAAAARRGGH FUUUUUCK ALLLL Y’AAAALLLLLL.
THE SENTIMENTAL FAVORITE: CHRIS HARRIS (2005-2006, 2010-2011) – So much misery could’ve been avoided if this dude hadn’t been traded to the Panthers in 2007. He was so good, but was one of many victims (along with Ron Rivera and various other assistant coaches) when Lovie Smith lost his damn mind following that Super Bowl they lost. He was like a coach on the field from an astoundingly early point in his career, like a Miniature Mike Brown to be paired with the Full-Sized Mike Brown when his ligaments allowed. (which wasn’t often, honestly) Bringing him back in 2010 may have been the only time the Bears’ brain trust at the time (such as it was) ever admitted they were wrong about anything, and was a HUGE part of how close they came to almost losing another Super Bowl that year. And that’s about as much as you can hope for when you root for the stupid Bears.