Chicago Bears: Do fans need to worry about Ted Philips?
Reports surfaced over the weekend that Chicago Bears President and CEO Ted Phillips had a list of possible new coaches and was working on it.
The Chicago Bears won their fifth game of the season in Week 16. It was against the lowly Cleveland Browns so they just did what they needed to do. Despite that win, it appears head coach John Fox’s time in Chicago is over. Fourteen wins in three seasons don’t help job security.
With that being said, reports surfaced over the weekend that the Bears are doing their due diligence on hiring a new coach. Specifically, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport reported that Chicago Bears president and CEO Ted Phillips was trying to figure out which coaching candidates would be available in the offseason.
The surprising thing isn’t that Fox’s job is in jeopardy. What is and what worries Bears fans is that Ted Phillips is the one doing the homework. Many view Phillips as just a businessman. He doesn’t have much football knowledge so having him involved in hiring a new coach is foolish.
Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune wrote about it.
"That has been a (George) McCaskey shortcoming – knowledge of the league’s working infrastructure, who’s good, who isn’t. No, I should say it’s a McCaskey-Phillips shortcoming. That’s why McCaskey and Phillips resorted to hiring a consultant that brought them Pace, and Fox, too, it seems. The Pace hiring was said to be with the intent to make him the top football voice in the organization. The coaching search should verify that authority."
As he wrote, George McCaskey and Ted Phillips needed to hire a consultant to find general manager Ryan Pace and Fox. They were the ones who insisted on Fox because they felt uncomfortable about this being Pace’s first general manager job. They wanted a veteran coach to lead the players.
How did that work out for the Bears?
Should we worry about the Phillips report? Well, this could signal a couple of scenarios. First, if he is indeed doing the work, is Pace’s job in jeopardy as well? If so, that makes three general managers in the past seven years. There can be no stability on the field if the front office is unstable. If Pace didn’t really have a hand in hiring Fox, then shouldn’t he choose the head coach now? The development of the young players (especially quarterback Mitch Trubisky) is on the line and a new coach needs to be on the same page as Pace. Fox obviously wasn’t.
Second, Phillips may be working in tandem with Pace to choose the coach. This is another problem because Phillips’ attempt at influencing Pace is terrifying. Also, since Phillips has McCaskey’s ear, he could pull an end-around on Pace. McCaskey would trust Phillips over Pace and we’d end up on the same boat.
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Third, and this might be the best scenario, is that Phillips is just working on the money aspects of possible candidates. He’s just trying to figure out the numbers for the contract offer. Everyone admits that Phillips is a great numbers man so this is a good thing.
We should probably hold off on jumping to conclusions. Hopefully, the Chicago Bears learned from their previous mistakes. However, when did they ever show that they learned before?