The Chicago Bears may have inked quarterback Jay Cutler to a massive contract extension just after the season ended, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want Josh McCown to return to the team for the 2014 season.
McCown made that revelation amid many others during an interview on Tuesday afternoon with Chicago-area radio show “Waddle and Silvy.”
“Right now as far as I’m concerned, I’m a Chicago Bear,” he told the hosts. “My heart is there. Until something doesn’t work out or if it changes, that’s where I hope to be.”
McCown would have good reason to return to Chicago next season, judging by his numbers in the first year of Marc Trestman’s offensive overhaul of the team. McCown averaged 224.0 yards per game in the 2013 season, and threw for 13 touchdowns and just one interception. His QB rating of 109.0 was third among NFL quarterbacks this season, and his QBR, a metric designed by ESPN, was 85.1, highest in the NFL.
Both Cutler and Trestman said that they hoped that McCown would return as the back-up in 2014, but it could be the feeling that there’s unfinished business for him in the Windy City that could motivate him to come back.
“As I look back on that (things he was able to accomplish), I’m pleased about that, no doubt,” he said. “But still I have a bitter taste because we weren’t able to get into the playoffs and get that done. As a quarterback and you look at the games I started – we went 3-2 – I wonder what I could have done differently in those losses to have helped my team. That’s my focus.”
NFL free agency begins on March 11th.
