Just give me the damn goof ball

David Terrell -- what a goof ball.

It's not the undeveloped potential that bothers me so much. It's not the fact that the Bears could have used the talent that the pick represented. It's not even that he's bad.

It's that he's so darned goofy. It makes you wonder what kind of questions a team asks a player when doing their psychological profile. It makes you wonder who's in charge of background checks.

I make this prediction. David Terrell is done as a Chicago Bear.

I hope that I'm wrong, but feel comfortable that I'm not. He's making too many of the slight of mouth movements that Beardom now recognizes as the prelude to the end.

The most disappointing aspect in a long line of blown draft choices is that a lot of them weren't bad people. They were just goofy and malcontented with themselves.

It makes one wonder if some of those kids had all the talent they were supposed to possess, but lurking somewhere inside them was a demon or a pixie that made them blow it.

I'm convinced that in endeavors of high achievement, like professional football, the difference between the all-pros and no-go's is primarily between the ears. This is not a new revelation, original with me. That makes it all the more surprising that the Bears would go out and actually find players like this.

Let's look at the history.

Alonzo Spellman, Ohio State, 1992

I know, we're not supposed to pick on him because he has a disorder, but he displayed all the hallmarks of goofiness even before the disorder became a real problem for himself.

He spoke of himself in the third person. He was an underachiever who acted like he had accomplished great things. He was difficult to coach and acted like any problem was essentially someone else's problem.

The sad part was that he had as much potential as anyone who has ever played. He absolutely dominated and destroyed opposing linemen, but was virtually uncoachable and couldn't figure out that football is a team game.

His Achilles heel wasn't that he had bi-polar disorder, but that he displayed a defensive type of arrogance not uncommon amongst goofy Bears players (see below).

I suspect that had he lived up to his great potential with 12+ sacks a year, he would have gotten more effective help sooner, and might still be playing, ala Barrett Robbins.

Rashaan Salaam, Colorado, 1995

He was probably the least goofy of all the goofy picks. That is, if you consider smoking marijuana versus playing in the NFL a legitimate decision.

He had a promising rookie year with over 1000 yards rushing, but fumbled a lot, and by self-admission, smoked more and more marijuana until his career was over. That he's now trying a comeback and is straightened out is a credit to himself.

Curtis Enis, Penn State, 1998

Apparently called a "con-man" by Penn State coach Joe Paterno, the Bears took Enis with the fifth pick in the 1998 draft, after Enis took a bribe from a professional agent.

In the spring prior to the draft, a woman had filed sexual assault charges against Enis, but the case was not prosecuted for lack of evidence.

In June or July he signed with a Christian agency called Champions for Christ who had a number of "disciples" in the Bears locker room. Curtis claimed he had found Jesus, and that all his troubles were behind him.

After a an eventful summer, which featured a near-revolt in the Bears' locker room over aggressive evangelizing, holdout Enis eventually signed with the Bears, but it was too late to have much impact in his rookie year.

However, the Champions for Christ connection and his previous troubles left teammates, fans and the media wondering if Enis ever knew, at any given time, exactly what he was doing. He seemed, more than anything, confused.

Curtis's play on the field was mediocre, he cussed at the media, did the Heisman pose in the rare instances he found the end zone (exactly twice in his three-year Bears' career) referred to himself in the third person and generally displayed a level of immaturity that was apparent before he got to the Bears.

He seemed like a kid that didn't have a very good sense of himself and was struggling to find out who he really was. He never did. He remains the top goof of the Bears' high draft picks.

Cade McNown, UCLA, 1999

What can we say about Cade? He was rude to the fans, he was rude to management, he was rude to the handicapped. His mechanics were as bad anybody's.

Still, he was the most prepared of any of the QB's in the draft for the pro game -- so we were told.

Immature is the word that comes to mind most often when thinking about McNown. That, and goofy.

Which brings us back to David Terrell.

Terrell displays a lot of the qualities that have derailed more talented football players.

He acts like the only thing holding him back is a conspiracy and works very little to improve. He listens not at all. He dances in the end-zone like he's just won the Super Bowl. And the worst of all possible traits is that he refers to himself in the third person.

Douglas MacArthur used to do that, and even with all he accomplished, he never understood that people laughed at him for it.

That's the most tragic part of being goofy. You are always the last to know.