Tony

The Poles hire is 10x more important than the HC hire, IMO. If Poles gets this right, the coaching staff will be fine. If Poles is in over his head, no staff has a shot in hell.

Depends on the situation. The OC under Matt Nagy didn't have as an important role as other OC's has Nagy called all the plays on offense (until he fired himself from that role, twice, because he sucked) So it kind of depends on who the HC is and how involved he is. But....you're right that good coordinators (and just a good staff) is very important in the big picture.

Seeing what Quinn did without Mack for a lot of the season….I’d be looking to see what the market looks like for Khalil and if the Bears can’t get some draft capital back to start getting the O-Line rebuilt.

Brett Veach has someone like Andy Reid he can lean on as a football mind in KC. Les Sneed has been GM for over a decade now with the Rams. The Ravens installed Eric DeCosta as GM in 2019....but Ozzie Newsome still has an office down the hall and is there as a veteran presence in the room. My issue is with the last regime, you had Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy together, both never holding these titles, this was both their first go at it. They reported to Ted Phillips, a guy that has no business touching anything that relates to football. On top of it, unlike most sports owners, George really has no corporate background to speak of and has never ran a successful anything, let alone billion dollar company. He was simply handed this role by mom. I know you've been on this crusade lately that the Bears are being treated unfairly in the media and everyone is being too hard on them, but I'm not going to apologize for wanting and expecting more from the charter franchise in the NFL.

Waddle brought up something today that I hadn't heard before but makes sense when you look back. During the tenure of Pace, he basically fired no one in the front office. When you look at this 7 year run the results were pretty mediocre....yet everyone by his side stuck around, no real changes were made behind the scenes. Waddle went on to say Pace really didn't like conflict and was a "yes man" type of leader, he liked having those guys around him. It's probably why no one had the balls to say "Um, why are you in love with a guy from North Carolina instead of the guy that just won the National Championship for Clemson? Don't you think we should at least give him a workout?" Ultimately no one is going to stand in the way of the decision maker in the room, it comes down to Pace (and now Poles) but you need those voices in the room to challenge you.

He really, really is a turd. Josh Allen was quoted saying: “I think everybody should have that choice to do it or not to do it,” Allen continued. “You get in this tricky situation now where if you do mandate that, that’s kind of going against what our constitution says and the freedom to kind of express yourself one way or the other. I think we’re in a time where that’s getting a lot harder to do. Everybody should have that choice." No one really knows if he’s vaxxed or not at this point (as far as I’ve read) And everyone was rooting for Allen last weekend, as they should because he’s incredibly fun to watch, seems like a good overall guy. Yes, I disagree with him 100% on his comments…but that really doesn’t change much for me. Aaron Rodgers is just a giant asshole.

Jason, this is basically my exact line of thinking of when it comes to the GM/President. As I said earlier, I don’t know how Poles will do. Legit none of us do. So much of it comes down to luck. If the Bears lucked into Mahomes instead of Mitch, Pace is considered one of the best GM’s in football, this franchise is in a totally different spot. All because of one decision. Anyway, they were discussing on the radio today about what a lot of savvy GM’s will talk about is how when you enter the job, you don’t realize how many fires you have to put out, and you need someone (or multiple people) to be your firefighters so you can focus on the bigger picture. A strong FO is so vital. What worries me about the structure with the Bears (among other things) is you’re hiring a first time GM and he’s “the guy.” What happens when Poles needs a sounding board? Who are the voices in the room that are going to say “Ryan, this isn’t how you should do things, let’s think about it this way?” If you bring in a Rick Smith per say, THEN hire Poles…now you have a veteran presence who has served at the top of an organization before, and there can be more of a dialog internally. I just HATE the idea that Poles is reporting directly to George. That’s his sounding board? I don’t care what George says about being “just a fan..” if the GM is reporting to George, then George is involved in football decisions. And it just bothers me. One of these days the Bears are going to luck into getting this right. Talent will win out and overcome their family affairs…but they just put themselves behind the 8 ball way too much.

Which probably gives more credit that his source is either Ted or George himself. Obviously, he went to bat for "his guys" against Olin, something George and Ted couldn't do publicly.

It's someone incredibly well connected because he really hasn't missed on anything lately.

Bring him home!

Very good start

I hadn’t heard of Poles until like Sunday, so I won’t pretend I have ANY idea of what sort of GM he will be. All I can be is somewhat hopeful, but the Bears track record tells us to be doubtful. All I ask is they just conduct this thing the right way and give the GM and HC an actual chance to succeed.

He has to be the one making the call. Bill Polian took them to this point. Hired a GM, and lined up some HC candidates. Fine, thank you for your service. You did exactly what was asked if you. But if we find out the HC was “paired” with Poles like they did with Fox and Pace…..it’s the same old song and dance as last time.

Bill Polian and his group need to be done after today. If Poles is now the GM, he should be the one conducting final interviews.

So it sounds like they are 100% going to sign a coach before a GM. I don't even understand the logic, the counterargument to hiring a coach first. You're in the market for a GM (possibly president role if you believe DaBearsBlog and those guys) so you're looking for someone to come in and make decisions...but before you make that hire, you're going to hire a HC based on the process led by a 79-year old that has 0 ties to the Bears after this? Why?

Best weekend ever

The meatball is coming out strong with me right now….I want blood next matchup against the Bucks

It always seemed to me that Mitch just couldn't process things quick enough and read defenses quick enough but was he coached up at all while here? Was he put in a position to succeed? I was never a huge Mitch guy, and traditionally I always put most of the blame on players, not the coaching staff that isn't actually on the field....but given that Mitch was raw and really needed to be developed while in the NFL, it certainly seems like he was brought into a terrible situation with a HC that was in WAY over his skis.

Too much smoke at this point, and I 100% trust the reporting of Jahns, Fish, etc. Nagy looks AWFUL right now, and based on what we saw in Fields rookie season, you really have to wonder what Mitch could have been.

As Q mentioned, I think he's also been dealing with some lingering injuries, but right now it seems like COVID is the reason he is currently out of the lineup. He's very much missed.

Listen, as I said before they don't deserve any benefit of the doubt at this point so I don't want to totally dismiss it haha, but as Jason said, if Polian was a real candidate, they interview him and don't make him the lead in this committee. Plus my guess is Polian doesn't want to get back into the game as an everyday guy anymore.