Finally. After a decades long battle with mediocrity it appears that the McCaskey family, and George McCaskey in particular, have finally decided to get out of the way of their football team. No, they aren't selling it, yet, but they look like they are going to do the next best thing and that is bring in a team that will run the day to day operations.
George will be meeting with the press today at 1PM and, significantly, he will be without Ted Phillips, the president. This is a marked change from previous firings and change announcements. The CEO, whichever family member it was at the time, was always sitting side by side with Ted Phillips.
This is monumental if he will be announcing that Ted is no longer going to be involved with the football day to day operations. The only way to keep the fans from further fleeing is to completely revamp the front office, and coaching, and that looks like what is going to happen later today.
They have already started by announcing that Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace are out. By removing Phillips it will allow the family to bring in a new president of football operations who will be allowed to have free reign, more or less, to do as they please. That means hiring the next GM and then letting the next GM hire his coach, like a real team does things.
Fans have had it with the nonsense at Halas Hall for the past twenty plus years, and if the family didn't do this I believe they would have lost a huge portion of their fan base. Look, you can only survive on the good will of fans for so long before they say enough. This fan base is more loyal than most, but even they, we, have our limits.
Whomever they bring in, the fans are going to have to accept some facts. First, this house cleaning is going to take at least three years to fix. The Bears are saddled with bad contracts and no draft choices so rebuilding is going to be a project. That's OK if the new management is honest with everyone.
Second, if Justin Fields is going to be the franchise quarterback, and that is still unclear, then he is going to need a completely rebuilt offensive line and offensive playbook, one that utilizes his unique talents. That means getting players that fit the new game plan, which is going to take time.
Third, the new management team needs to decide what kind of team will the Bears be. Bears fans love seeing the Bears as a defensive juggernaut but that reality hasn't been here for quite some time. The defense has been average, at best, for a while now. If they decide to continue with a defense first tradition, that's fine, but they need better players.
Generally, you don't draft a franchise quarterback to be a defense first team. Your defense needs to be just good enough to not lose games for you. The Bears have wanted their defense to actually win games for them. Those days are done friends.
Finally, what the Bears need to do is start to use the built in help they have available to them. I have never seen a professional sports franchise avoid their former players like this one does. Gary Fencik went to Yale, Dan Jiggetts went to Harvard, Patrick Mannelly went to Duke, Jerry Azumah went to New Hampshire, and Olin Kreutz went to Washington. That is just a few off the top of my head they could lean on for some help in fixing this mess.
These are smart guys who have offered to help but the Bears have stiff armed them so far. Why? Who knows. Start making changes by getting these guys involved in the process of hiring your new team.
It is going to be a good day at Halas Hall for Bears fans today. Let's hope they don't screw it up like they usually do.
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