General Manager/Head Coach Interview Discussion

[Grizzled]

Eberflus made the first round of musical chairs and has been invited for a 2nd interview next week. The Jags are doing the same.

[The Cooler King]

He's got that Saints D cooking the past few years. The rest of his history is perhaps more complex, included 8-28 as HC of the Raiders.

Still an interesting name and names added at this point, you wonder if they're being sourced from potential GM candidates.

[wulfy]

Worth a look, but not exciting.

[Hiphopopotamos]

Not ideal.

[dplank]

Worst case scenario for me personally, but highly doubt it so not too worried

[HisRoyalSweetness]

Add yet another candidate to the GM list...

Bears interview Ran Carthon for GM job
Carthon, whose 49ers are in the second round of the NFC playoffs, conducted a similar interview with the Giants on Monday.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2022 ... giants-nfl

[The Cooler King]

Only one yesterday seemed odd. Now just two straight days of only 1 interview. Still 6 GM and 4 HC from rumored candidates to go. And one HC with a 2nd interview already scheduled.

[TheWorldBreaker]

Only one yesterday seemed odd. Now just two straight days of only 1 interview. Still 6 GM and 4 HC from rumored candidates to go. And one HC with a 2nd interview already scheduled.

It’s odd that it seems they’ve constantly adding names but slowing the pace. But I guess maybe the downside of George McCaskey needing a guy in his 80’s to hold his hand is that maybe he doesn’t have the stamina to do multiple interviews every day for over a week.

[The Marshall Plan]

Anybody else feeling progressively worse about this the longer it drags on?

Flores should not have left town or that Zoom call or whatever without a job offer provided they loved him which is the rumor mill.

They’re gonna fuck this up. They really will.

What is this? Week 2?

[dplank]

RE: "Too much handwringing" I could not agree more. I started to write a whole post about it -- we don't know what they're doing in the hiring process, and they don't care what we think. We're just a bunch of "fans" with an opinion.

I suppose that you can get into an Existentialist discussion about "Fans" being "Fanatics" and as such, "Hand-wringing" (especially online) is out only avenue we have in these matters, and I suppose that's the nature of the deal.

With that said, I don't care who they hire -- I just want to make the playoffs for a change.

And I mean, I do get it. We are fans doing what fans do. But all the unnecessary worrying about the process seems like wasted energy.

You either trust that they will get it right, or you believe they won't. Regardless of what side of that fence you are on, you either hope they don't get it wrong, or hope they accidentally get it right.

Folks just pick and choose when and what they want to worry about I suppose. By this logic, no one should have said anything about Nagy either. Wasted energy to complain about his offense, we can’t change it, so we should just hope he doesn’t shit the bed or we back into a win. This is just Fan 101 stuff. Is it meaningless? Yes! Will fans do it anyways, Yes! I worry about this because it’s so impactful on the next 5 years of Bears football.

If we bring up that old thread about “types of fans”, you’ll find the passionate fan group engaged around this process and you’ll find the apoplectic fan group shushing the passionate group. And round and round we go.

But when the apoplectic group decided they want to get engaged in something, JMO but this should be that sort of thing. It’s FAR more important than any particular game we might play - this impacts YEARS of football.

[Mikefive]

Folks are concerned that George, a self professed non football guy, isn’t just going to hire the GM (unavoidable unfortunately) but may also hire the HC also, or at a minimum restrict the options for the GM who he claims he wants to make the hire. The logic is simple, if you know you aren’t qualified then get out of they way and let qualified people do it. Focus on getting those qualified people in place as quickly as you can so you don’t have lost opportunity (I.e. a bunch of coaches already signed elsewhere). Each day they spend time interviewing coaches instead of GMs exasperates this concern. The only way to mitigate it would be to have Polian make the actual decision and let George just have veto rights if he’s strongly opposed for some reason.

This right here 100%. And the "mitigation" involves the hire being made by someone who is clearly knowledgeable, but has his own biases with zero accountability.

[Mikefive]

Nuance is dead. Preference means absolute rigidity to an ideal.

I think you bring up a good point about collaboration as well. Even once the GM is in place he'll seek counsel from other views. I recall reading about one of the Baltimore execs and noted on his resume was being apart of the hiring team for Harbaugh. That means perhaps the best exec over the past 2 decades even employed a team of people for a HC search.

Once the GM is in place, if he wants to prioritize getting a HC right away, his support, for better or worse, will be limited to who's in house already (plus Polian). But there's a lot of paper resume hiring going on by fans. GMs still need to get coaches in the door IMO. It seem comparatively easier for a coach to have pre-built a staff than a GM pre-picked a coach.

This sounded fair until you got to "a GM pre-picked a coach". The argument to get a GM first doesn't require that. Sure, any new GM will have his built relationships. But that doesn't mean he can't or won't interview several candidates and see how they respond to what the Bears need.

[Mikefive]

You normally see guys removing their name from contention when they know either someone else has got the job or they know they're not a finalist.

OR if you don't like what you are seeing/hearing from the org you're interviewing with.

People sometimes forget that interviews are a 2-way street. On more than one occasion in my career, I've asked to be removed from consideration for a role because I didn't like the manager, the company, or the way the job was structured.

Good call.

[Grizzled]

Haven't really seen this addressed: let's assume the Bears hire the GM first as they should. Are they going to hand him a list of HC candidates which they've winnowed from Zoom interviews? Pretend they hire a guy and he really wants to interview and potentially hire a HC they haven't talked to at all (hello Greg Roman), are they going to deny him? Cluster city brewing.

Polian's 11 principles for hiring a Head Coach:
https://theathletic.com/3080397/2022/01 ... ght-coach/

[UOK]

[Grizzled]

Just say 'no'. What's the selling points for him?

[Xee]

Anybody else feeling progressively worse about this the longer it drags on?

I feel like the most Bears thing to do would be, after all these interviews, to promote Champ Kelly to GM and then he brings on a HC no one's heard of.

All indications are the execs have finally gotten the message but there's a lot of precedent to show the above is a possibility.

[TheWorldBreaker]

Anybody else feeling progressively worse about this the longer it drags on?

Flores should not have left town or that Zoom call or whatever without a job offer provided they loved him which is the rumor mill.

They’re gonna fuck this up. They really will.

What is this? Week 2?

Them slowing the pace of the interviews to one a day and wanting to interview everyone as well as the Leslie Frazier was the guy from the beginning rumors have me concerned.

[UOK]

I'm not concerned. The delays basically indicate they're interviewing guys who aren't losing in the Wild Card round or regular season. AKA, winners.

By the end of next week we'll know our guy. Just relax, peeps.

[The Cooler King]

Haven't really seen this addressed: let's assume the Bears hire the GM first as they should. Are they going to hand him a list of HC candidates which they've winnowed from Zoom interviews? Pretend they hire a guy and he really wants to interview and potentially hire a HC they haven't talked to at all (hello Greg Roman), are they going to deny him? Cluster city brewing.

Polian's 11 principles for hiring a Head Coach:
https://theathletic.com/3080397/2022/01 ... ght-coach/

Perhaps I'm naive, but I don't see the initial coach list as necessarily limiting for the GM. If anything it's gotten initial feelers out to as broad of a pool as possible for them. But if there is a name that McCaskey/Polian miss, I don't see a situation where the GM can't bring that guy in.

[Z Bear]

Also keep in mind that the Bears staff has not worked with most of the GM candidates while most of the coach candidates have worked with them. The Bears should be gleaning behind the scenes information from the coaches about the GM candidates. If the coach brings up something about a guy he works with that should be a giant red flag about that GM.

[wab]

Anybody else feeling progressively worse about this the longer it drags on?

I feel like the most Bears thing to do would be, after all these interviews, to promote Champ Kelly to GM and then he brings on a HC no one's heard of.

All indications are the execs have finally gotten the message but there's a lot of precedent to show the above is a possibility.

Champ Kelly promotes Sean Desai?

[The Cooler King]

Also keep in mind that the Bears staff has not worked with most of the GM candidates while most of the coach candidates have worked with them. The Bears should be gleaning behind the scenes information from the coaches about the GM candidates. If the coach brings up something about a guy he works with that should be a giant red flag about that GM.

This is what I've been trying to convey as well. Doing the HC search on a dual track should help in being informative. Even without it being an exact "oh yea that guys an idiot" type situation. Just being able to compare philosophies.

[The Cooler King]

Just say 'no'. What's the selling points for him?

He's a great defensive coach who has prior HC experience.

[wab]

Just say 'no'. What's the selling points for him?

He's a great defensive coach who has prior HC experience.

Came here to say this.

[The Marshall Plan]

I feel like the most Bears thing to do would be, after all these interviews, to promote Champ Kelly to GM and then he brings on a HC no one's heard of.

All indications are the execs have finally gotten the message but there's a lot of precedent to show the above is a possibility.

Champ Kelly promotes Sean Desai?

Has anybody ever told you that you really know how to give people hope?

(Yes I’m being sarcastic. Lol.)

[crueltyabc]

He's got the same goofy Mr. Positive personality that Nagy has but Allen is actually elite in his role. He's creative and flexible. He's adjusted to the ebb and flow of talent the past couple years and the d has been solid the whole time. He deals with Sean Payton and Chauncey Gardner Johnson on a daily basis so I think he can deal with any GM that George chooses. He'd be a fine choice in my opinion.

[TheWorldBreaker]

It seemed pretty obvious that he was one of those people better suited to the coordinator role when he was a head coach.

[UOK]

[crueltyabc]

I guess you either think that a first time HC is going to rise to the occasion or that a second time HC learned his lesson. I'd bet spending 6 years working with one of the best in the game probably helped him but we'll see what Bill Polian thinks about it I guess