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Shea McClellin Signs with Patriots, Is Bill Belichick Delusional?

By Bill Zimmerman

Dec 4, 2014; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Bears outside linebacker Shea McClellin (50) following the second half against the Dallas Cowboys at Soldier Field. Dallas won 41-28. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 4, 2014; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Bears outside linebacker Shea McClellin (50) following the second half against the Dallas Cowboys at Soldier Field. Dallas won 41-28. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports /
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The New England Patriots are scooping up Chicago Bears quicker than opponents scored on a Mel Tucker defense. After the Patriots acquired Martellus Bennett from the Bears earlier in the evening, Adam Schefter reported that the Patriots had also finalized a three-year deal with Shea McClellin.

That’s right. The smartest man in the NFL, Bill Belichick, wants to have Shea McClellin on his roster. Most Bears fans will agree that they’ve seen McClellin on the roster for too long (some might say four years too long) and seen him struggle at multiple positions over that time. If there was any hope for McClellin in Chicago, it would have been under Vic Fangio, one of the best defensive minds in the league. But those results were mixed at best.

While some analysts thought McClellin improved in 2015, it really was nothing more than lipstick on a pig.

This vine does a nice job summarizing the Shea McClellin era in Chicago. No matter what the Bears did with him, he couldn’t find his way around a football field. If the Bears had any confidence in Shea moving forward, they would have considered keeping him for another couple seasons at one of the inside linebacker positions, but they scooped up Jerrell Freeman the instant it was clear he was available.

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Belichick is a great football mind. He’s probably the smartest football mind in the game today and one of the best in the history of the sport. He’s a rough individual to like, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a tremendous coach and a fantastic evaluator of players.

But one has to question what he sees in McClellin. The Patriots had interest in McClellin back in 2012 coming out of Boise State, and it’s possible that Belichick still sees that rookie prospect and feels he can mold him into a useful player on his defense. But what could Belichick have possibly seen out of him in the last four years?

Hell, what did Belichick see in him when the Patriots humiliated McClellin and the Bears defense in 2014? It has to be said that if anyone can make McClellin into a legitimate NFL player it’s Belichick, but at the same time, one has to wonder if even Belichick has gone over the deep end.

Perhaps all Belichick sees in McClellin is a rotational player that provides depth to the defense. But if Belichick really believes he is going to turn McClellin’s career around, maybe he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

Perusing twitter, Patriots fans seem to think the issue with McClellin is simply that the Bears used him incorrectly.

If you search twitter, you will see more tweets like this one from Patriots fans. While I’ll never defend Mel Tucker’s defense, he did try Shea at multiple positions and he failed at all of them. What I will do is defend John Fox and Fangio who felt that Shea’s best position was at inside linebacker. Shea still struggled for most of the season and the Bears let him walk at season’s end. Patriots fans can think all they want that Shea’s struggles were simply due to the incompetent Chicago Bears franchise, but they will soon find that, as it turns out, plenty of first round picks never amount to much and that is no different for McClellin.

Belichick is collecting Bears like they’re Honus Wagner baseball cards. It started with Jon Bostic, and now he’s added Bennett and McClellin. If Belichick turns Shea around, it will be one more feather in the cap of one of the great football minds of all-time. But to quote Oscar Levant- “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.” Perhaps the same could be said for Belichick- signing McClellin certainly isn’t genius, but it has all the potential to be insane.

Bill Zimmerman is an editor and featured writer for FanSided‘s BearGogglesOn. Like his Facebook page or follow him on Twitter for more news and interaction.

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