Bears Most Attractive Job?

[The Cooler King]

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl- ... -12-picks/

Scroll to second part of article.

I know there is a both a Nagy and Pace thread, but I thought this was worth passing along separately.

Whether it happens today, or tomorrow, or any day between now and Jan. 10 following the final game of the regular season, Bears head coach Matt Nagy will be relieved of his duties in Chicago.

It's likely that general manager Ryan Pace will meet a similar fate, and it'll be the dawn of a new era in the Windy City.

With more than a month left in the regular season, the Bears job — either one of them — seems like it'll be the best one on the market. That's the overwhelming response I've gotten from sources around the league and coaches and personnel execs gear up for a new hiring/firing cycle.
....
Ownership isn't known to meddle, meaning the folks hired for the job can simply do their job....

Do with this info what you will, but obviously the past week was a very negative press week for the org and this snippet is quite positive about the franchise standing.

[Ditka’s dictaphone]

Don Martindale

[Grizzled]

The Bears have to be considered an attractive job. 3rd biggest city, fanatical fans, possible new stadium in the works to energize people. Dump Pace first, get rid of Ted (put him in charge of a stadium project and hire a football operations guy), and it gets even better.

[wulfy]

The Bears have to be considered an attractive job. 3rd biggest city, fanatical fans, possible new stadium in the works to energize people. Dump Pace first, get rid of Ted (put him in charge of a stadium project and hire a football operations guy), and it gets even better.

and JF1

[Moriarty]

Do with this info what you will

I'll tell you what I'll do with this info

It's likely that general manager Ryan Pace will meet a similar fate, and it'll be the dawn of a new era in the Windy City.

[RichH55]

I think Jags will be most attractive job - speculation

I do think Bears job will be up there though - especially if we can see some solid Tackle play before the end of the year

[Mikefive]

"Ownership isn't known to meddle." Maybe that was true some time ago. But it's not true now. They meddled this year when they ordered the coach to play a different QB.

[wulfy]

"Ownership isn't known to meddle." Maybe that was true some time ago. But it's not true now. They meddled this year when they ordered the coach to play a different QB.

For what it's worth, that's been denied by both George and Matt.

[The Cooler King]

"Ownership isn't known to meddle." Maybe that was true some time ago. But it's not true now. They meddled this year when they ordered the coach to play a different QB.

For what it's worth, that's been denied by both George and Matt.

Even if that particular rumor were true, it doesn't sound like that's impacted the perception a lot. In other words, if that's the only example, it's still a lighter touch than many owners.

Or it's a false report.

If anythting I would say the Bears have been more hands off as owners, from what I can see, for the past 2 decades. A lot more ownership meddling dating back to Halas overriding Finks on Ditka hire and even into the mid 90s where they didn't have a GM and Phillips/Ed were very involved with sign off on $ impacting decisions (I think this was the somehwhat well know example of nixing a trade up for Tomlinson because they didn't want to pay the contract).

[dplank]

Chicago will always be a top tier job. Sometimes a little better than others depending on various circumstances, but the allure of coaching / GMing the iconic Bears franchise is a huge draw. Add in JF1 and it’s super hot, best available job for sure. Only a few franchises have the draw of Chicago and it doesn’t look like any of those jobs will have openings.

Don’t forget how big of football fans these coaches are, this stuff matters a lot to them. RBs and MLBs that play here feel the history, we all accept that, but coaches feel that stuff too. The city, the history, iconic all around. Coaches will be climbing over each other to coach here, that’s really never been a problem. We’ve had first choice of talent but have missed.

Looking at the other franchises that might be hiring this off season and none rate.

[Mikefive]

If I'm looking at the Bears job, I'm certainly not thinking it's a top half of the league job. You can say ownership mostly lets GMs and coaches do their thing. That's certainly a positive. And it's an original team in a giant market which seems positive.

Despite those plusses, there's an elephant in the room that can't be denied. The Bears perform consistently below average. What do I mean by that? By the numbers in a 32 team league, the Bears should have over the last 32 years...
- Won 50% of their games. Bears are 248-275 (47.4%)
- Won 8 division titles. Bears have 7.
- Made the playoffs 12 times. Bears have 8.
- Made NFC Championship appearance 4 times. Bears have 2.
- Appeared in Super Bowl twice, winning once. Bears made it once and lost.
- Over that 32 year span, the Bears have 5 playoff wins. FIVE.
- And achieving those numbers would only put the Bears at... mediocre. And they're not hitting that by any measure.

If you're a coach or GM who wants to come to Chicago, you have to ask yourself why that is. It's not that the team doesn't spend money. They do. So what's the problem then? You have to look at what has been constant over that time. That's the ownership and the team President. Even if you think all the GMs and/or coaches all suck, who hires and leads those guys? It's at least one McCaskey and Ted Phillips.

[southdakbearfan]

There is 32 NFL GM and Head Coaching jobs in the world, 32.

All of them are attractive. The bears are ultra attractive because it's chicago. Just like the cubs the bears are a headline NFL franchise amongst the top in value, regardless of recent performance.

You think the cubs losing for 108 years ever kept them from their choice of coach or gm in the last 40 years?

[Ditka’s dictaphone]

I’d rather start at a franchise that’s underperforming than overperforming.

Less expectation, more realism.

[Moriarty]

If I'm looking at the Bears job, I'm certainly not thinking it's a top half of the league job. You can say ownership mostly lets GMs and coaches do their thing. That's certainly a positive. And it's an original team in a giant market which seems positive.

Despite those plusses, there's an elephant in the room that can't be denied. The Bears perform consistently below average. What do I mean by that? By the numbers in a 32 team league, the Bears should have over the last 32 years...
- Won 50% of their games. Bears are 248-275 (47.4%)
- Won 8 division titles. Bears have 7.
- Made the playoffs 12 times. Bears have 8.
- Made NFC Championship appearance 4 times. Bears have 2.
- Appeared in Super Bowl twice, winning once. Bears made it once and lost.
- Over that 32 year span, the Bears have 5 playoff wins. FIVE.
- And achieving those numbers would only put the Bears at... mediocre. And they're not hitting that by any measure.

If you're a coach or GM who wants to come to Chicago, you have to ask yourself why that is. It's not that the team doesn't spend money. They do. So what's the problem then? You have to look at what has been constant over that time. That's the ownership and the team President. Even if you think all the GMs and/or coaches all suck, who hires and leads those guys? It's at least one McCaskey and Ted Phillips.

I was all set to agree with you.
After all - the Bears are a bad franchise and their results are subpar. That's undeniable.

But I think they've cleaned up a lot of past mistakes (not wanting a real GM, not spending on front office, not having quality facilities, etc).

And I think their biggest problem now is their inability to accurate assess the state of the team. More specifically, they can't recognize or admit a bad situation until it's gone full nuclear.
For example: I knew Nagy was a total fraud, the window for this build was over, and Pace & Nagy needed to go mid-2020. The Bears couldn't figure it out until it was slapping them in the face with a 3-7 record, a 3rd season with a long losing streak, and players revolting against the coach. They bought an unnecessary year of garbage with their inability to see it coming.
Another example: Back when they were churning out mildly above average, but not real contending, seasons around 2009-12. It took them way too long to pull the trigger on Angelo & Lovie. And when they did, they clung to this ridiculous notion that there was still window left to contend in. If they'd pulled the trigger earlier, sure. But by the time action was taken, it was too late. That build was done and it was time for a rebuild. But they couldn't see it and had to put us through a miserable 5-11 season for them to grasp reality.

That problem - not knowing a situation is unsalvageable until it's completely blown up - really isn't one that's going to impact a brand new regime coming in. It's only on the tail end of an already failed regime that it comes into play. So that shouldn't be scaring prospective hires so much.
Unless, of course, they think a new HC & GM should be playing to win immediately in 2022, without giving them at least 1 year to fix the mess left behind. But with a team likely to finish around 6-11, I'm thinking even they can't be that stupid.

[UOK]

The Bears seem like an attractive job until you get there and you realize you'll have George McCaskey nervously wringing his hands all the time and Ted Phillips breathing down your neck, and both of them siphoning credit for anything you do.

[wab]

I'm still on the Bowles train, but I'm warming up to the idea of Ryan Day.

[The Cooler King]

The Bears seem like an attractive job until you get there and you realize you'll have George McCaskey nervously wringing his hands all the time and Ted Phillips breathing down your neck, and both of them siphoning credit for anything you do.

I mean the article posted refutes that exact point basically.

[UOK]

The Bears seem like an attractive job until you get there and you realize you'll have George McCaskey nervously wringing his hands all the time and Ted Phillips breathing down your neck, and both of them siphoning credit for anything you do.

I mean the article posted refutes that exact point basically.

Sure, and I'm likely being too harsh on Ted Phillips and George McCaskey, and dammit I like George, but this franchise needs an exorcism. I'm just a pissy grump.

[Grizzled]

McCaskey and Phillips, if anything, seem too hands off. No well run organization would allow what happened with the uncertainty on Nagy to go on without issuing a statement sooner. No one whom the Bears will look at for HC and possibly GM, though, will imagine themself in the same situation nor have anything less than full certainty that they will be the one to bring a Super Bowl to Chicago.

[Ditka’s dictaphone]

McCaskey and Phillips, if anything, seem too hands off. No well run organization would allow what happened with the uncertainty on Nagy to go on without issuing a statement sooner. No one whom the Bears will look at for HC and possibly GM, though, will imagine themself in the same situation nor have anything less than full certainty that they will be the one to bring a Super Bowl to Chicago.

I agree with this.
The business revolves around the football and to try and separate them is a fallacy.
If the owners or senior executives try and ignore the football then the business will suffer.

[The Cooler King]

I mean the article posted refutes that exact point basically.

Sure, and I'm likely being too harsh on Ted Phillips and George McCaskey, and dammit I like George, but this franchise needs an exorcism. I'm just a pissy grump.

Fair enough. I just think it's tough to sometimes focus on our team only and maybe not realize that not every other team is all sunshine and rainbows either.

Okay to want a new owner. But okay to also realize that in itself is just another crap shoot.

[dplank]

Outside of the Dave McGinnis fiasco, I can't think of one time that there was a hot HC candidate that we missed out on for a "better situation". We are a destination franchise, and for the most part we get who we want. We just need to get better at selecting the right person.

[wab]

Outside of the Dave McGinnis fiasco, I can't think of one time that there was a hot HC candidate that we missed out on for a "better situation". We are a destination franchise, and for the most part we get who we want. We just need to get better at selecting the right person.

There are cases like Arians and Nick Saban who didn't take the job because they didn't agree with some aspect of what they were going to be asked to do, but yes...for the most part you are correct. The Bears generally get who they want.

[Moriarty]

Outside of the Dave McGinnis fiasco, I can't think of one time that there was a hot HC candidate that we missed out on for a "better situation". We are a destination franchise, and for the most part we get who we want.

Well - I think that's a lot harder to quantify and a lot more nuanced than you're making it.

A lot of times team A and coach X are so clearly fixated on each other from the get-go and make it happen fast, such that other teams don't interview X or put them on their short list, because it's already obvious that's not happening and why let it be known that you'd have liked something you can't have?



Out of recent coaching hires:

Jauron (1999)
Lovie (2004)
Trestman (2013)
Fox (2015)
Nagy (2018)

I don't remember the process for the last 3 all that well.
But for 1999 & 2004, I definitely recall a festival of embarrassment.
1999 was the McGinnis fiasco.
2004 was the Saban rejection, followed by 1-2 other top college candidates laughing at the Bears and pre-emptively saying they had no interest, because the Bears were still trying to lowball and were not even remotely in the ballpark of expectations for a top college candidate. Bears hired last of everyone and got their 5th/6th choice out of 6.

[dplank]

Outside of the Dave McGinnis fiasco, I can't think of one time that there was a hot HC candidate that we missed out on for a "better situation". We are a destination franchise, and for the most part we get who we want. We just need to get better at selecting the right person.

There are cases like Arians and Nick Saban who didn't take the job because they didn't agree with some aspect of what they were going to be asked to do, but yes...for the most part you are correct. The Bears generally get who they want.

IIRC (always a risk lol), I thought Arians wanted the job and it was us who passed on him in favor of Trestman. I forgot about Saban, that's a miss - good point.

[HisRoyalSweetness]

I'm likely being too harsh on Ted Phillips and George McCaskey, and dammit I like George, but this franchise needs an exorcism. I'm just a pissy grump.

You're not wrong.

[The Cooler King]

There are cases like Arians and Nick Saban who didn't take the job because they didn't agree with some aspect of what they were going to be asked to do, but yes...for the most part you are correct. The Bears generally get who they want.

IIRC (always a risk lol), I thought Arians wanted the job and it was us who passed on him in favor of Trestman. I forgot about Saban, that's a miss - good point.

Yea there were some early Arians nixing the Bears rumors but the totality of everything I've read since leads me to believe it was the Bears/Emerys choice to go Trestman over Arians. As I understand it, the early rumors where things where Arians had some issues with parts of the interview process, but those were still not deal breakers for Arians, and he would have accepted.

The Saban thing as I underatand was a combo of cash and control. He basically wanted final say over the roster, which Angelo has just been hired for. And apparently Angelo also way underestimated his market price anyways. But there's at least a fair amount of nuance with that and not just a candidate spurning them outright.

[wab]

There are cases like Arians and Nick Saban who didn't take the job because they didn't agree with some aspect of what they were going to be asked to do, but yes...for the most part you are correct. The Bears generally get who they want.

IIRC (always a risk lol), I thought Arians wanted the job and it was us who passed on him in favor of Trestman. I forgot about Saban, that's a miss - good point.

You could be right on Arians. He thought being asked to do a mock press conference as part of the interview process. But I believe he was waiting in a hotel room for the Bears to call and finally told them to get bent and left.

So the Bears said Trestman was their guy all along... who knows.

[G08]

IIRC (always a risk lol), I thought Arians wanted the job and it was us who passed on him in favor of Trestman. I forgot about Saban, that's a miss - good point.

You could be right on Arians. He thought being asked to do a mock press conference as part of the interview process. But I believe he was waiting in a hotel room for the Bears to call and finally told them to get bent and left.

So the Bears said Trestman was their guy all along... who knows.

From what I recall, Arians thought he was getting the job but balked when Emery asked him to keep Marinelli.

The funniest part at the end was when Marinelli told us to pound sand.

[Yogi da Bear]

The Bears has to be one of the most desirable posts in the NFL, but it does have one major drawback that affects that--the Chicago Media.

Chicago Journalists are hellbent on their negativity towards the Bears. Look at Skippy Ballless and Jay Moronotti as two quick examples. The Chicago Media is unflinchingly negative towards the Bears and seems to want to gloat in casting flaming arrows at the franchise, thus also igniting the negativity of an otherwise premiere fanbase.

When coaches comes here, I don't think they take that into account. They see the possible glory of the position with stars in their eyes and ignore the shit that the Chicago media and hence an often hostile fan base brings with them. And they get stuck in the sewer often flailing to climb themselves out of. Then they inevitably succumb to that furor. The furor that forced Nagy to start Justin before he was really ready. Or forced him to give up play calling even though he didn't really want to. I realize that most here, myself included, are skeptical of Nagy's play calling. But does it really make you feel better than the Negative Chicago Media and the hostile fan base it has created is in fact making such crucial decisions for the team. All of you out there that accuse and lament Bear ownership meddling, do you really feel better when the team's staff caves to the Negative Chicago Media Meddling?

And FWIW, I wouldn't give up on Nagy's chances of returning until we're actually knocked from the playoffs. Do you realize that we're only a game back from the final spot? Yeah, we have a tough road to hoe, but I'm not yet giving up on them. It starts with the next step. Yeah, we're facing the number one team in the conference next, but it's also a warm weather team that has to come to Chicago to play in the rain in 40 degree weather. We can beat them. That's what I think.