Wooaahh PJ .. be careful... you have inadvertently advised everyone you are in most likely your 6th decade of life.... lol.... Bobby Douglas didn't chuck it aimlessly downfield, he threw it 500 mph at every receiver .. even if the hapless bastage was 3 feet away from him.. that guy was a beast, and probably destroyed more receivers fingers than any QB in NFL history ..
And how many NFL teams can claim that their former place kicker is currently sitting on a State Supreme Court bench?
Da Bears
I was a mere child when Douglass played. I was in first grade or so. My Dad (RIP) and I used to watch Bears games, occasionally even making the drive (about an hour - we were far, far west) downtown. I saw Joe Willy late in his career there. We waited for him near the Jet's player's bus after the game. He came out - in a Ryder truck, and did NOT stop to give autographs. What the hell, he was washed up by then.
You're right about Douglass, of course. It is also true that that velocity, vectored properly, was convertible to some astounding distances. Too bad he had zero deep touch. I well remember him trying to connect with George Farmer. Rotsa Ruck.
By the time Avellini played, I was in high school. I used to call him the tortoise, for a variety of reasons. He had many attributes - an ability to duck and cover, an apparent imperviousness to lobotomizing blows to the head. Clearly, quickness (or competence, for that matter) was not one of those attributes.
As for Orton's odds in Denver: slim to none. The Bear's line isn't that bad. Hell, they made Rex Grossman look almost competent in '06 and there's even more fat meat up there now (Pace, Omiyale, and Shaffer). Orton is a brain-damaged retard, plain and simple, and will fail out no matter where he goes. He reminds me of someone once intelligent, now gone idiot, trying to work out the quadratic formula, drooling and trying to form his mouth as if to swallow some undigestible lump. Griese would've been a better choice last year, despite having a weaker arm.
Charles Freeman... very good...