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For almost the entire offseason, Chicago Bears' General Manager Jerry Angelo has insisted that the team has very limited needs to fill through free agency and the draft. Tight end is one; cornerback is another. Those were the positions that Angelo acknowledged the team was looking at. Apparently, backup quarterback was a third.

The Bears announced that they had agreed to terms with free agent quarterback Brian Griese, formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They signed Griese to a 5-year contract, despite the fact that Griese is currently hobbled from knee surgery he underwent last season after suffering an injury in Tampa Bay's fifth game of the season. Neither Griese nor the Bears are sure when he will be ready to play, but it might not be in July when training camp starts up in earnest.

The signing of Griese was seen as somewhat of a letdown by some fans, who thought that if the Bears were going to pursue a quarterback at all, it should have been someone like Josh McCown, now with the Detroit Lions. After all, McCown has experience as a starter in Arizona, has a lot of talent that can still be developed, and is five years younger than Griese. Or, some of the more wishful fans held out hopes that the Bears would make an effort to get Drew Brees, who was essentially released by the San Diego Chargers following an injury to his throwing shoulder that was sustained in the Chargers' final game of the season. But anyone who has followed the Bears for more than a few years knew that Brees wouldn't even be in the realm of possibility because of his price tag. The Bears would never cough up the $60 million package that Brees eventually accepted with the New Orleans Saints.

At any rate, the Bears got Griese, and the coaching staff have already anointed him Rex Grossman's backup. This means that Kyle Orton will slide to number three on the depth chart, and former third-string quarterback Jeff Blake will likely be looking for another job sometime soon. Blake must have expected something like this to happen because he didn't really contribute much to the squad last year. But Orton has got to be extremely disappointed in the lack of faith the Bears' organization is showing in him.

All Orton did as a rookie last season was win the starting job in training camp after Grossman went down with an injury, and then lead Chicago to a 9-4 record during the regular season. His best game came in Week Two against the Detroit Lions. He completed 14 out of 21 passes for 150 yards in guiding the Bears to their first win of the season (by a final score of 38-6), which was also his first career victory in the NFL. Orton also threw his first career touchdown pass in that game, a 28-yarder to wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad in the 2nd Quarter.

But Orton failed to show any consistency under center, and he wasn't able to demonstrate that he was getting better despite gaining what should have been very valuable experience week after week. In fact, over the course of the next 12 games, Orton's QB rating was below 50 in five of those contests, including an embarrassingly low 14.7 rating against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week Three. His QB rating was below 70 in 8 of those games, and never got above 90, except in the Detroit game. Indeed, by the time the Atlanta game rolled around, Orton was pretty much just expected to hand the ball off to running back Thomas Jones.

With Rex Grossman fully dressed and healthy, head coach Lovie Smith had no choice but to yank the ineffective Orton after halftime against the Falcons. To that point, Orton was just 2-of-10 for 12 yards on the day. Grossman finished up the game with a win, and that pretty much spelled the end of Orton's stint as Chicago's starter. He would return to start the final game of the season against Minnesota, but that was just in an effort to preserve Grossman for the playoffs.

I fully agree with Bears' management that Orton is not yet good enough to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. His 9-5 record as a starter might say otherwise, but the wins and losses alone don't tell the whole story. He was just as jittery and uncertain in the final game against Minnesota as he was in the first game against Washington, and failed to show very much poise at any time during the season. Orton's low statistical ratings as a rookie were pretty much to be expected. After all, he was a fourth-round selection in the draft, not a highly touted prospect that was expected to come in and deliver right away.

What was alarming, however, was the fact that Orton never got comfortable even as the season progressed. The Bears' coaching staff did what they could to make things as easy on him as possible. They didn't call many passing plays, and kept things pretty basic. The coaches said all along that they didn't want Orton to have the pressure of carrying the team on his shoulders. So that burden fell to Thomas Jones and the defense. Even so, Orton couldn't be counted on to execute.

So a starter he is not. But I think that Orton is adequate as a backup. He has demonstrated that in a pinch, he can go out there and show enough presence of mind to get through a couple of games with a winning record. Being the number two guy for an entire season actually might have helped him out. He would have been able to get plenty of reps in practice, he would have been able to watch and learn from Grossman, and he wouldn't have any of the pressure of game-time situations to worry about. He would have been able to spend the year learning and developing. Orton has shown that he has a solid foundation to build on, and just needs time to smooth out the edges and get used to playing in the NFL. I think he at least earned that much during his stint as the emergency starter last year.

But the Bears apparently don't even have enough confidence in him to trust him with backup duties. Either that, or they don't think that Grossman will make it through a 16 game schedule without visiting the injured reserve list, so they decided to shop for a guy who is a proven starter. That's definitely what they got in Griese, but I think they overpaid for a position that isn't really a priority. Grossman has been identified as the starter by Coach Smith. Fine; he's got the resume for it, even if he doesn't have the experience. Orton should have been the backup, and I think he would have done fine in that role. So bringing Griese in at this point doesn't make any sense, unless the coach thinks he will actually be the starter. Then that would put Grossman at number two, and Orton would be at number three. That actually seems like a much more solid depth chart than having Grossman as a starter.

So far, the Bears have publicly proclaimed that Grossman will be the team's starter heading into training camp. But those who know Griese have said that the former University of Michigan quarterback wouldn't have gone to a team where he had no shot of winning the starting job. That means Bear fans could be treated to a fun show in training camp as these two guys battle it out.

And still Orton will be the odd man out. It hardly seems fair, considering that he has more NFL experience than Grossman and that he led the Bears to the playoffs last season. But it just goes to show how precarious jobs in the NFL are.