Bears fans didn’t have to look beyond network TV to see what might have been Sunday night. There, they saw offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury guiding rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels and helping the Commanders clinch an NFC playoff spot with a victory against the Falcons.
The Bears interviewed Kingsbury and decided not to hire him as their offensive coordinator last January. A year later, they’ll have the chance to do the same for a much bigger job: head coach.
The Bears will have to answer what figures to be the first question Kingsbury or any other of their previous coordinator candidates asks: Why were they not good enough to get the job Shane Waldron got a year ago but now are worthy of being the Bears’ head coach? The Bears’ only answer will be that they screwed up.
General manager Ryan Poles and then-head coach Matt Eberflus chose Waldron from a list of eight candidates a year ago. Five went on to become coordinators with other teams, and four have been overwhelming successes.
Kingsbury, who helped mentor Bears quarterback Caleb Williams at USC last season, has developed Daniels into the presumptive Offensive Rookie of the Year. The Commanders are fifth in the NFL in scoring and playoff-bound. Greg Roman and the Chargers, who are 12th in the league in scoring, are heading to the postseason under coach Jim Harbaugh.
The NFC South is still up for grabs, buoyed by coordinators the Bears interviewed a year ago. Liam Cohen has the Buccaneers ranked fourth in the NFL in scoring, and Zac Robinson has the Falcons 16th. After benching veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins, the Falcons have watched rookie Michael Penix Jr. rise the last two weeks. The Bucs will beat out the Falcons for the division title if they beat the Panthers on Sunday.
Of the five Bears candidates who went on to be coordinators elsewhere, only the Saints’ Klint Kubiak coaches for a losing team. The Saints average the 10th-fewest points in the NFL and, like the Bears, are looking for a new head coach. Even Kubiak, however, fared better than Waldron, who was fired at midseason, and fill-in coordinator-turned-interim coach Thomas Brown. The Bears are last in the NFL in yards and fourth from the bottom in points.
Brown figures to get an opportunity to interview for the Bears’ head-coaching job next week but is a long-shot candidate after going 0-4 as the boss entering the season finale Sunday against the rival Packers. On Thursday against the Seahawks, he acted unsteady in a late-game situation, much as Eberflus often did.
Those gaffes might lead the Bears to value experience. Former Titans coach Mike Vrabel spent this season as a coaching and personnel consultant for the Browns, but his contract ended Monday and he is allowed to conduct interviews starting this week. The Bears figure to be interested.
Pete Carroll is intrigued by the Bears’ opening, too. He went to the playoffs 10 times in 14 seasons with the Seahawks — as many trips as the Bears have made to the postseason since 1988.
Brown has been reticent to talk about landing the full-time job, but he was reflective Monday.
‘‘Understanding when I accepted the role [that] you don’t have an interim tag if everything is phenomenal,’’ Brown said. ‘‘There’s difficulties. There’s a reason for a change, at least in the eyes of ownership. I knew what I was walking into . . . and [I] don’t flinch. Still not going to flinch, not going to back down from my opportunity to continue to grow and battle, regardless of the result. The future takes care of itself by what you do every single day.’’
When Brown said he appreciates ‘‘the opportunity to sharpen myself through difficult moments,’’ it sounded like something he would say in a job interview. Maybe he will soon.
‘‘I know we live in an instant-gratification generation and also world,’’ he said. ‘‘From a sports standpoint, you expect — and we want — stuff to be fixed right now. I get that. But that’s not how stuff actually gets fixed or problems get solved.’’