Rick Mirer -- Staring Fresh In Chicago -- Bearing His Soul

RICK Mirer believes that with the Chicago Bears, he will learn the fundamentals, have one guide to look to and there will be the communication necessary for him to succeed in the NFL.

PLATTEVILLE, Wis. - They met at midfield, dwarfed by pushing, shoving, grunting behemoths of linemen. Chicago Bears quarterbacks and receivers huddled with offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh to talk.

Such a simple notion amid all the commotion.

Sometimes communication is the difference between a catch and a drop. Between winning and losing.

Rick Mirer, the Bears' new quarterback, noticed it the moment he arrived in Chicago in April after being traded by the Seattle Seahawks.

"This is a much more specific offense than I've been in before," said Mirer, the Seahawks' starting quarterback for much of the past four seasons. "Everyone is on the same page. That is what we lacked back there."

"Back there" is a Kingdome-full of bad memories, most of which Mirer corralled through a frustrating 1996 season. Among the cornfields and dairy farms of southwest Wisconsin where the Bears recently concluded summer camp, Mirer offered a frank account of his tenure in Seattle.

Traded for the 11th pick of the 1997 draft, Mirer said Seahawk quarterbacks, receivers and running backs met separately with their position coaches, resulting in broken plays that made him look bad. He also said the Seahawk offense was vague compared to the Bears'.

"When it comes to crucial situations, we're going to have a plan to attack it instead of just reaching into a bag and gambling, just throwing out some sort of guess and hoping it works," he said.

Seahawk Coach Dennis Erickson, looking away from his desk as he was told of the disparaging comments, recoiled.

"Coordination happens on the practice field," Erickson said. "We met separately but also met together. We met together the more the season went along."

As far as quarterbacks and receivers not being synchronized, Erickson said, "There's no truth to that. I've been coaching 25 years and I've won a lot of football games with this system."

With five touchdown passes and 12 interceptions last season, Mirer was the NFL's poorest-rated quarterback. He frustrated coaches by failing to connect with Joey Galloway, the team's primary receiver.

This season's starter, John Friesz, replaced Mirer in the fifth game but suffered a broken leg and missed the final three weeks. He still threw nine touchdown passes.

"Friesz didn't have problems finding receivers," said Bob Bratkowski, Seattle's offensive coordinator.

Mirer, 27, who signed a three-year, $10 million contract with the Bears but is struggling to win the starting job from Erik Kramer, characterized the Seahawk offense as chaotic.

"The biggest problem was the offense was like a four-headed monster," he said. "Too many guys with input. No one guy in charge so if I had a question I could go to that guy. I could go to all of them (Erickson, Bratkowski and quarterbacks coach Rich Olson) and get different answers.

"If they don't correct that, it doesn't matter who they got lining up, it isn't going to get any better."

The Seahawks think it will be much better with a healthy Friesz and back-up Warren Moon. They also are pleased with cornerback Shawn Springs, the draftee selected in the first round as a result of the trade with the Bears, followed by one with the Atlanta Falcons.

"I supported him for two years, but you've got to win games," Erickson said of Mirer. "When we made the change, we started winning."

Mirer was 2-7 as a starter last year, Friesz, 4-2. Stan Gelbaugh started the '96 finale, defeating Oakland for a 7-9 team record.

Mirer said he was ready to leave after the season's second game when Erickson pulled him at halftime against Denver, trailing 13-7. Although Erickson later conceded the move was a mistake, Mirer said it was too late.

"That proved to me my job wasn't as solid as it had always been," he said. "When you tell somebody he's the guy and then you prove he's not . . . at that point I didn't feel I could trust they would spend time to teach me whatever it was I wasn't doing correctly."

Bratkowski said Mirer, from Goshen, Ind., would have thrived as an understudy after coming out of Notre Dame as the No. 2 selection of the 1993 draft. Instead, Mirer had to start as a rookie because Dan McGwire suffered a wrist injury in the exhibition season and couldn't unseat his rival. Mirer was the first NFL rookie in 20 years to start every game.

That promising beginning did not last. Coach Tom Flores was replaced by Erickson as the Seahawks were plagued with an unpopular owner, volatile stadium politics and highly publicized player transgressions.

In the end, Mirer lost confidence, but not in himself as much as in the system, he said.

Cavanaugh, an NFL quarterback for 14 seasons, hopes to instill confidence in Mirer while teaching him the passing game used so effectively by the San Francisco 49ers. He is satisfied with the progress, though it has been slow.

Perhaps too slow for Bears aficionados. If Mirer thought the pressure in Seattle was exacting, wait until Monday night, Sept. 1, at Lambeau Field.

Chicago opens the season against NFC Central rival Green Bay and quarterback Brett Favre. The Packers are defending Super Bowl champions and you can feel the envy all the way down Lake Shore Drive to Indiana.

Coach Dave Wannstedt, the one-time defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys and University of Miami, feels it. Wannstedt is 33-33 in four seasons, including 7-9 last year.

Unacceptable, Bears fans are saying. Wannstedt lured Cavanaugh from the 49ers to reshape the offense and try to save his job. Cavanaugh wanted Mirer when the Seahawks failed to trade him to Atlanta for Jeff George.

Although Mirer looked sharp the past two exhibition games, the Windy City still is blustering because the New Orleans Saints, with old Bear Mike Ditka coaching, got quarterback Heath Shuler for a '97 fifth-round draft choice and '98 third-rounder.

Chicagoans are starting to wonder if Mirer is worth the 11th pick.

"We're committed to Mirer, so whether it's the first game of the season, the halfway point or a year from now, at some point he needs to be the guy," Wannstedt has said.

Mirer asks for patience, not a traditional Chicago sports-fan value, except for some poor souls who religiously follow the Cubs.

"I have never been taught the passing game specifics in all my years," he said. "That's hard to believe. Four years at a major school and four years of playing almost every game in the NFL and I'm still like a rookie coming into this stuff."

NFL coaches said Mirer was not well prepared out of Notre Dame, which ran the option offense. Mirer concedes the point, but would not change schools if he did it again.

He views Chicago as a long-term move and isn't overly concerned about immediate results. He wants to play but understands Wannstedt might select Kramer, a proven NFL quarterback who is familiar with the system. Kramer, who will turn 33 in November, is entering his ninth NFL season, after suffering a broken neck last year. The Bears traded for Mirer because they figured Kramer was finished.

But the quarterback who threw for 3,838 yards and 29 touchdowns in 1995 returned this summer as strong as ever. He started Sunday's game against Arizona, completing 7 of 10 passes for 80 yards and one touchdown in one quarter. Mirer was nine for 13 for 112 yards and one touchdown in almost two quarters.

"I feel like I have some unfinished business here," Kramer said, adding that he returned because he thought Mirer might need time to adjust. "But they're going to give (Rick) every shot to win the job and be the quarterback of the future."

That was evident the day Mirer arrived at the Bears' training facility in Chicago where he expected a two-hour meeting with coaches. Instead, Cavanaugh sent him to the field to throw. They practiced footwork and dropbacks, portions of the game Mirer had not considered since high-school camps.

"We did more that one day on fundamentals than we did in a season in Seattle," he said.

Cavanaugh said Mirer is playing as well as the Bears expected when signing him to the team's second-most lucrative contract.

"We're seeing a guy with a little loss of confidence but with a lot of ability," Cavanaugh said. "He has a pretty good mind for football."

Coaches hope Mirer improves on reading defenses as well as responding in two-minute situations. Their jobs might depend on it.

"Everyone wants him to come in and turn things around, but it's not going to happen," said Curtis Conway, the Bears' main receiver who suffered a broken collarbone in Sunday's game against the Cardinals. "It takes time in this system."

Time is something Wannstedt's staff lacks as media criticism mounts. Mirer, who has had seven quarterback coaches in nine years, counting Notre Dame, knows the feeling.

But for once he doesn't mind. Even with Conway out and the pressure building, Mirer thinks Chicago is his kind of town.

He can't say the same about Seattle after four seasons with the Seahawks.