alternatehistory.com

Note: Happy Friday all! Had a little bit of fun putting this one together, I hope you like it. Thanks as always for reading/liking/commenting!

2005 Off-Season/Draft

Ever since Chicago fired Dick Jauron the day after Thanksgiving rumor had it that they would look to bring in Dallas offensive coordinator (and former Bears quarterback) Jim Harbaugh in to be their next head coach. The two sides had agreed in principle for Harbaugh to take the job early in the playoff cycle but with Dallas making it to the Super Bowl Chicago was forced to hold off on officially hiring him until the week after the big game.

Harbaugh was formally hired and he set to work right away fixing Chicago’s culture and team. The Bears had talent – Brian Urlacher was one of the best linebackers in the game and Rodney Harrison and Mike Brown were perhaps the best safety duo in football. The main issue was at quarterback. The 2003 and 2004 Bears featured a revolving door of has-beens and never-wases under center and while they made the playoffs in 2003 in 2004 the bottom fell out.

Harbaugh fixed that by March. The Rams, running into cap issues when they paid Marc Bulger a market-value contract extension, finally cut bait on Kurt Warner and traded him for a 5th rounder in the upcoming draft. Chicago extended him til the end of the 2006 season and hoped that Warner had a little bit of magic left in his right arm. To coach Warner Harbaugh brought in an old friend. Rich Gannon was pulled from a comfy retirement and brought on to Chicago’s staff to be the quarterbacks coach.

I was shocked when Jim came to my house unannounced and offered me the job but I guess I shouldn’t have been. Jim was a strange bird and flying out to Northern California on a whim instead of calling like normal people do was what made him different – and successful. “Know When To Walk Away” by Rich Gannon.

Chicago wasn’t the only team with a coaching change. After losing in a heartbreaker in the AFC Championship Game Chargers head coach Marty Schottenheimer announced his retirement effective immediately. San Diego was left scrambling as their vacancy was pretty late in the cycle and the choice candidates (like Harbaugh) were snatched up by other teams.

Maybe it was the last-minute nature of the job opening or maybe it was the fact that Chargers general manager John Butler’s[1] son played under him at Michigan State but San Diego surprised the NFL by hiring LSU’s Nick Saban and giving him a five-year deal to leave Baton Rouge for Southern California.

Saban did have NFL experience – he was Bill Belichick’s defensive coordinator for four years in Cleveland but he really made his name at Michigan State and especially LSU where he won the 2003 BCS Championship Game over the top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners.

San Diego was banking that the defensive-minded Saban would help the Chargers defense rebound while keeping their high-flying offense well, high-flying.

2005 NFL Draft

The Niners won the rights to the first overall pick via coinflip over their neighbors from Oakland. San Francisco stayed close to home and took Aaron Rodgers from Cal-Berkeley. The Raiders took consensus top running back Ronnie Brown. Tennessee reached a bit and took Carlos Rogers, Miami took Adam Jones, and the Jets took Braylon Edwards. Chicago, picking six, took their quarterback of the future in Alex Smith. Green Bay traded up eight spots and took pass rusher DeMarcus Ware from Troy.

Smith was projected to be a top pick and him falling to six was good value for Chicago. The plan was that Warner would play for 2005 and possibly 2006 and Smith would take the reins from there. Whether that’s what would actually happen would, as always, remain to be seen.

[1] He died in OTL in 2003 of lymphoma. He survives here obviously.