A few months ago, my wife and I got intrigued by the Northern Lights being visible in our neighborhood. On the night they were predicted to be most spectacular we took our dog and drove to the park near our home where it was promoted that it would be best viewed.

We waited for a couple hours, past midnight, with a number of other would-be viewers who, like us, were disappointed.

Nothing.

There were a couple times when someone would claim they could see something, but it never was the Northern Lights we expected.

For football fans looking forward to viewing Thursday’s preseason opener between the Chicago Bears and Houston Texans, the results may be the same. That is, what you really came to see is not going to appear.

The Texans own one of the most watchable quarterbacks in the game in second year pro C.J. Stroud. He was the second overall draft choice last year and made the Carolina Panthers look like chumps for trading up to the first pick and take Bryce Young instead of Stroud.

The Panthers trade was a package deal that sent the Chicago Bears a bevy of draft choices including the first pick in last April’s allotment of college talent. The Bears used that pick to choose USC’s Calib Williams, who they figured was the best quarterback in the draft while many thought the top pick should have been LSU’s Jayden Daniels, the Heisman Trophy winner that went to the Washington Commanders with the second pick.

In all, half of the first dozen picks in this year’s NFL draft were quarterbacks. The New England Patriots took Drake Maye with the third pick, the Atlanta Falcons selected Michael Penix with the eighth pick, J.J. McCarthy went to the Minnesota Vikings with the tenth overall selection and Bo Nix was chosen by the Denver Broncos with the twelfth pick.

The rush to get quarterbacks was reminiscent of the 1983 draft when six signal callers were chosen in the first round. That year, the first player chosen was John Elway, while four other quarterbacks were selected before the Miami Dolphins took Dan Marino with their first round choice. For the record, the first and last players selected in the first round that year developed into the best quarterbacks in the draft.

So, now we have the Bears taking Williams and sending the man they chose with their first pick three years ago, Justin Fields, to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a fourth or sixth round draft choice depending on how much Fields plays this year for Mike Tomlin’s squad.

The Bears search for a franchise quarterback is a lot like the Northern Lights event Pam, Rosie and I went on in May. The search continues long after the promise of results. And if any of the other quarterbacks excel and Williams is a flop, the Bears could be looking at another situation like the selection of Mitch Trubisky while Patrick Mahomes was available in the 2017 NFL draft.

Chicago Head Coach Matt Eberflus has already declared Williams will not see any action in the Hall of Fame Game, and it is unlikely Texans Head Coach DeMeco Ryans will risk his top QB to possible injury in this opening scrimmage.

As soon as Eberflus indicated Williams would sit and Tyson Bagent would get the start on Thursday in Canton, the line shifted three points from the Bears, a 1½ point favorite, to the Texans by 1½ points.

Our early selection on Chicago in this game was not based on Williams, who we knew that if he played it would be no more than a series or two, but the overall direction and motivation of these two squads. Now, with Williams known to be out, the public has enhanced a wager on the Bears with a better point spread.