"On the day before Sam Hurd signed a $4.15 million contract with the Bears last July, he was talking his way out of trouble with Homeland Security officials in Texas who found $88,000 cash and marijuana in his car.
During a routine traffic stop one day earlier, July 27, a federal affidavit states Dallas County police seized the money and a "green, leafy plant" out of a vehicle registered to Hurd and driven by his fellow conspirator.
Hurd later contacted police to ask for his cash back but claimed he knew nothing about the pot, which he blamed on the buddy who detailed his car.
It was the beginning of a sting operation that ultimately got Hurd arrested Wednesday night outside a steakhouse in Rosemont on federal drug charges and, fair or not, made the Bears look guilty of not conducting thorough background checks on free agents.
Whatever due diligence the Bears did, it didn't do enough to reveal Homeland Security officials were interviewing Hurd 24 hours before the team announced his signing. If the Bears were at the mercy of a federal probe that demanded secrecy, either President Ted Phillips or general manager Jerry Angelo or team security chief Tom Dillon should have made that clear. They still can.
Making Bears officials unavailable to discuss a player accused of trying to buy 1,000 pounds of marijuana and five to 10 kilograms of cocaine a week only enhanced the perception that the team should have known more about someone who fooled everybody but the feds.
Asked at his news conference if anything in Hurd's background raised concerns, coach Lovie Smith said, "No issues. I'm in shock over it. Never saw it coming.''
The irony is the Bears have made limiting character risks on the roster a priority.
At a meeting of scouts in Bourbonnais before the 2010 season, assistant general manager Tim Ruskell referenced ex-Bear Tank Johnson's problems in instructing staffers they couldn't pursue any more prospects with questionable pasts. You wonder how much the flurry of free-agent signings after the July 25 end of the NFL lockout contributed to Hurd's federal entanglement being overlooked.
So many valid questions about Hurd's arrest deserve answers the Bears must address immediately, game week or not. This was a guy brought into the organization hailed for his intangibles, a guy wide receivers coach Darryl Drake once said "added some maturity in the room.''