The Bears’ first preseason game ended in a 24-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Of course, being preseason, the final score is less important than individual and situational performances. Judging on this one game, we’ve got a little ways to go.

Our first-team defense was awfully shaky, giving up a touchdown on the first drive. This in spite of safety Mike Brown’s return after his third season-ending injury.

The big question of the night was which QB would win the starting job? Neither Kyle Orton nor Rex Grossman did anything to distinguish themselves as the front-runner. Orton showed a little more poise, completing 7 of 10 passes, but fumbled the ball on a scramble. Grossman got tripped up once by his own guard, but did manage to get a touchdown. In fairness, however, running back Garrett Wolfe did most of the work on that play.

Of the Bears quarterbacks who received playing time last night, the one who really caught my attention was Caleb Hanie, a rookie out of Colorado State. He played the majority of the second half and showed a great deal of awareness in the pocket. I was impressed by his instincts on a few scrambles after the pocket collapsed. He managed over a hundred yards passing, although his completion percentage was just over fifty percent. However, I believe that percentage would have been improved had he been throwing to first-team receivers. If the Bears’ starting QB job really is an open competition I hope this guy gets a shot at it. At the very least, given the nature of the position in this city, I would not be surprised if he got some decent playing time this season.

The other important event for the Bears yesterday was, of course, the trading of Brett Favre to the Jets. This is significant to us only because Favre, who has a 22-10 record against the Bears, is going from a team that plays the Bears twice a year to a team that isn’t even in the same conference. There will be a lot of talk for a while about how stupid the Packers were to let him go, but frankly I feel like it was Favre’s prima donna antics that got him shipped to New York. A massive amount of work, time and money go into preparing a team for an upcoming season, and for the last several years Favre has toyed with the Packers management, playing will-he-or-won’t-he come back for one more shot. You can’t wait until a couple of weeks before the season starts and then expect a team to drop all their plans for you, even if you’re Brett Favre. Couple that with his unreasonable expectations regarding his input in the management of the team (he threw a hell of a fit when the Packers ignored his advice and did not sign Randy Moss a year ago), and I can see why the Green Bay organization was ready for a change. And hey, the fresh start might be good for Favre, too.

It’ll be a relief not to have to face him twice a year anymore.