Conduct your HC Interviews

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Ditka’s dictaphone
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First thread I’ve started I think.

Anyway, I wondered if I could tap into peoples expertise and knowledge for the HC hire. To my knowledge the Bears have lined up 9 HC interviews so far. They’ve moved quite quickly to request these names in my opinion. I’m assuming they’ve been researching them up for weeks before the vacancy was confirmed.

So what questions or themes do we consider most important to the HC interviews. I’ll start:

1) what would be your plan to optimise the existing talent offensively and defensively.
2) What skills, knowledge and experience do you look for in offensive and defensive co-ordinators.
3) what do you consider important factors in successful player development.
4) how do you correct a team which concedes too many in-game penalties
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The Marshall Plan
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5) Which positions do you see as the greatest shortcomings? Do you feel these are best addressed in the draft or FA?

6) What is your opinion of Justin Fields? After having seen him last year, what do you believe is his ceiling? His floor?

7) What type of offense do you intend on installing here and how do you see Justin Fields performing in that?

8) Similar question as 7, but with the defense. What defensive scheme would you like to see here and how do you see that playing to our strengths of ILB and OLB?

9) What is your plan to get Eddie Jackson back on track to being a top safety in the NFL?

10) We are 12-3 going into the last few weeks of the season, what is your plan for personnel management?

11) We are 3-12 going into the last few weeks of the season, what is your plan for personnel management?
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How do you spell 'collaboration'?
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Bears Whiskey Nut
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This is a good thread. It helps to reveal what WE think is important in a coach;

1. What is your vision for an offense with Justin Fields as the centerpiece?
2. What is your ethos when it comes to building chemistry in the locker room? What is your philosophy for making the sum greater than the parts?
3. What is your process for correcting behavioral outliers?
4. Give me your accountability process? How are you holding our players to a high standard, and what is your method for maintaining it.
5. What three goals would you set for yourself and the team in your first year as the head coach of the Chicago Bears?

That's mine.
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I think I’d probably tailor most of the questions to each candidate, especially the former head coaches.

But one question I’d ask everyone is:

If you could make one rule change to the NFL rules what would that change be?
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wab
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I was interviewing once (a long time ago) to be one of 4 department leads for a department that hadn't been created yet. I sat down in the interview and expected to get asked standard interview questions. The guy looked across the table at me and said "what's your plan?"

That was it. He expected me to have it thought out before the interview and to be able to explain it to him in detail. He asked follow up/transitional questions based on things I was outlining, but his opinion wasn't that he should have to ask me anything...that I should be able to articulate exactly what I was going to do to help get this department up and running.

That's pretty much what I would ask. "What is your plan to make the Bears a winning football team".

*also...I didn't get the job
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I don't even know what kind of questions I'd ask them. I'd be much more interested in asking people who've worked with them if they're frauds.
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wab wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:54 am I was interviewing once (a long time ago) to be one of 4 department leads for a department that hadn't been created yet. I sat down in the interview and expected to get asked standard interview questions. The guy looked across the table at me and said "what's your plan?"

That was it. He expected me to have it thought out before the interview and to be able to explain it to him in detail. He asked follow up/transitional questions based on things I was outlining, but his opinion wasn't that he should have to ask me anything...that I should be able to articulate exactly what I was going to do to help get this department up and running.

That's pretty much what I would ask. "What is your plan to make the Bears a winning football team".

*also...I didn't get the job
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wab wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:54 am I was interviewing once (a long time ago) to be one of 4 department leads for a department that hadn't been created yet. I sat down in the interview and expected to get asked standard interview questions. The guy looked across the table at me and said "what's your plan?"

That was it. He expected me to have it thought out before the interview and to be able to explain it to him in detail. He asked follow up/transitional questions based on things I was outlining, but his opinion wasn't that he should have to ask me anything...that I should be able to articulate exactly what I was going to do to help get this department up and running.

That's pretty much what I would ask. "What is your plan to make the Bears a winning football team".
I'm a sales exec and that's the exact opposite of my approach. The people I interview invariably come in with a plan. I just finished a round of interviews and wouldn't even let the candidates present their highly-polished, impeccably rehearsed, stellar graphics-laden PowerPoint plans. I wanted to ask questions that they didn't have the opportunity to rehearse answers to.
Bears Whiskey Nut wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:31 am 1. What is your vision for an offense with Justin Fields as the centerpiece?
2. What is your ethos when it comes to building chemistry in the locker room? What is your philosophy for making the sum greater than the parts?
3. What is your process for correcting behavioral outliers?
4. Give me your accountability process? How are you holding our players to a high standard, and what is your method for maintaining it.
5. What three goals would you set for yourself and the team in your first year as the head coach of the Chicago Bears?
THIS is what I'm talking about right here. ^^^^
The Marshall Plan wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 8:28 am 5) Which positions do you see as the greatest shortcomings? Do you feel these are best addressed in the draft or FA?
8) What defensive scheme would you like to see here and how do you see that playing to our strengths of ILB and OLB?
10) We are 12-3 going into the last few weeks of the season, what is your plan for personnel management?
11) We are 3-12 going into the last few weeks of the season, what is your plan for personnel management?
I also love these - especially 10 and 11.
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I want to ask. How do you unseat the Packers from running our divsion.
Do you see Fields as the answer and if so how do you maximize it?
what is the most important parts of the team to build from?
Draft or FA? aka how the rams gave up their future picks vs how packers build their team?
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dplank
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Do you smoke pot and can I get your guys number? I guess that’s not a necessary question these days. 🤷‍♂️
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The Cooler King
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It's something I've never given much thought to. I tend to agree that I want to see them approach me with a plan, but also know that I'd want to plan to throw them off with unexpected questions that they can't prep for.

As someone who has done some interviews I'm usually more interested to se the thought process behind a question rather than the answer.

Assuming it's likely to be a GM doing the final HC interviews and the overwhelming decision maker, I think from their perspective they need to determine how this person complements them. If I hit it off immediately with a candidate are we too similar and end up prone to group think? But can I go too far where we're just too ideologically different and will never work well together.

For GM interviewing HC I think there has to be a quality film session. And I'd want to make it as unexpected as possible so I can see then process new info. Pull out the film reels from the 80s if you have to. I don't wanna see them in their comfortable element in speaking x's and o's because I need to determine how capable they are adjusting and applying new concepts.

Leadership wise I'm more open to listening to their planned approach. Walk me through your OTAs to SB agenda. I want to see them leave no stone uncovered. Along the way I can lob a few hypotheticals just to understand how they think about different things.

For ownership portion, it's gonna be more high level. I want to in some ways make the interview hostile because I want to see them in something of a pressure situation and see how they respond. Xs and Os deep dive is gonna be somewhat pointless for ownership, but I want to ask them to critique my org, especially if they've coached against us recently. And I want to know how they cultivate roster leadership and common sense of purpose. Just general philosophical understanding of their views. And I'm gonna try and poke holes and make them defend their philophies/views (even if I agree with their style/vision).
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Just saw this come up. I haven't finished listening, but sounds like it might be relevant to the thread

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GM questions on how the coaching staff is evaluated. What is needed to improve the scouting department? How would you evaluate candidates for HC, what do you put an emphasis on?
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dplank wrote: Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:26 pm Do you smoke pot and can I get your guys number? I guess that’s not a necessary question these days. 🤷‍♂️
This is Arizona..weed isn't legal..it's mandatory...

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My interview would go like like this:

Me: Hi coach Harbaugh, how are you today?

Applicant: I’m not Jim Harbaugh

Me: The f*** outta here!!!
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Burl wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:13 pm My interview would go like like this:

Me: Hi coach Harbaugh, how are you today?

Applicant: I’m not Jim Harbaugh

Me: The f*** outta here!!!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Ok, that’s funny.
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How are you going to beat Green Bay consistently?
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Hi, I'm George. I'm not a football expert, just a fan, and everyone else in the room is the same... Well except for Bill. but even he never played professionally and was never a coach.

Explain to us why Matt Nagy's offense was so ineffective and then explain your offense and why it will work.
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Grizzled wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:26 am How are you going to beat Green Bay consistently?
You beat me to it, Grizzly.
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Grizzled wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:26 am How are you going to beat Green Bay consistently?
Answer: Score more points than them :-P
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:46 am Hi, I'm George. I'm not a football expert, just a fan, and everyone else in the room is the same... Well except for Bill. but even he never played professionally and was never a coach.

Explain to us why Matt Nagy's offense was so ineffective and then explain your offense and why it will work.
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:46 am Hi, I'm George. I'm not a football expert, just a fan, and everyone else in the room is the same... Well except for Bill. but even he never played professionally and was never a coach.

Explain to us why Matt Nagy's offense was so ineffective and then explain your offense and why it will work.
Nice one, HRS - you sound like a pretty savvy HR operative. I'm hoping someone on that committee brings at least a small dose of HR expertise.
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