Through the generations, each athlete takes his rightful place

Admitting to being generational myself, I am disturbed that I might have missed a few worthies along the way who managed to arrive without modern prepackaging, not to further pick on the Bulls for reluctantly choosing Michael Jordan third in the NBA draft.

And come to think of it, there was Tom Brady waiting 199 places into his generation of football draftees when the Patriots decided, “why not?”

So I am grateful to get a heads up on Caitlin Clark and Victor Wembanyama and Shohei Ohtani lest they slip past unnoticed.

Speaking of myself, reluctantly of course, I fall into the Silent Generation, something I did not know until I looked it up for this column. There is no real explanation for the silence, but I suppose it means we didn’t whine, or live with our parents, and just got along with things.

The Boomers followed the Silents and I’m guessing you all know who you are, the limitless spawn of sacrifice, dwindling down now but still running again for President while Gen X and the Millennials are already sighing about the good old days.

Ah, remember Madonna? Eminem? Julia Roberts? Pudding Pops?

It is only lately that athletes have become identified as “generational” meaning I assume as being the best of their time, as opposed to the Greatest of All Time, another designation that comes only later, reserved for the Bradys and the Jordans who will not blush when accused of being a GOAT.

We automatically think of Muhammad Ali, the original self-proclaimed GOAT, or maybe of Secretariat, but then we would have to explain what boxing and horse racing were, not to mention newspapers and how they first packaged their results in tiny type on what came to be known as “the scoreboard page,” a generational innovation, as were newspapers, come to think of it.

We shall see what we shall see of Connor Bedard, the Blackhawks teenager, identified as being generational when barely in an identifiable generation himself. According to folks who keep track of these things, Gen Z is where Bedard and new Bears quarterback Caleb Williams find themselves.

Having pretty much exhausted the alphabet, the generational identifiers may next need to resort to Roman numerals, like Super Bowls and World Wars. However it goes, we can anticipate future representatives of games to be burdened by exact expectation.

Bedard can pretty much achieve at his own pace, being a figure in a sport without great community curiosity, hockey resting securely among the daily updates, somewhere after local traffic and the White Sox.

So whether Bedard is the next Gretzky or the last Connor (a generational hockey name) it is pretty much up to him. For a Bears quarterback, any Bears quarterback, it is up to fortune, habit and the memory of 1985 (now, that was a generation).

Will Williams be a generational quarterback for the Bears? This is an easier task than it might be elsewhere considering the generations of Bears quarterbacks. Wait, that is too generous. The Bears do not have generations but seasonal occupants, Chicago being the Airbnb for quarterbacks.

If Williams is a generational disappointment after the usual three years allowed for failure (otherwise known as the Trubisky-Fields Rule), Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus will not be around to say “he seemed like a good idea at the time,” and the Bears will creep on at their petty pace.

If Williams should be, as roundly proclaimed, what the Bears have been missing since — well, since Jay Cutler at least — then all that is known now may be more wisdom than wishing.

But the comparisons are greater than Cutler. Williams is already Patrick Mahomes or Aaron Rodgers, considering the pluses and ignoring the minuses.

Let us consider and review. Is Williams coachable? Questionable. And it may not matter since coaching is not generally considered a Bears strength.

His “escapability” is considered an asset when it may not even be an acceptable Scrabble word. To make Williams taller the Bears have added an eighth of an inch to his 6-foot-1 measurement. He may be indecisive and have a “twitchy” release, but Williams also has “hero-ball mentality,” whatever that is.

It must be a generational thing.