I’m exhausted by the Bears. By their ineptitude. By their mea culpas. By their coaching searches.
I’m exhausted by their end-of-season press conferences, by their forensic investigations into what went wrong and by their vows to learn from their mistakes.
I’m exhausted by their management-speak and by the profound attributes they’re looking for in a head coach. The ideal candidate always is somewhere between a drill sergeant with a heart of gold and a CEO whose bottom line is his employees’ growth as people. Here’s the only attribute that matters: the ability to bring out the greatness that’s inside quarterback Caleb Williams. Anything else is package filler.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles stood at a lectern Tuesday at Halas Hall and did what too many other team officials have done the past four decades: He tried to explain where a season went awry and how the Bears were going to get it right this time.
I’m exhausted by my belief that they won’t, that they’ll pick the wrong coach and that we’ll be doing this all over again in two or three years.
Poles said that the list of candidates to replace Matt Eberflus, who was fired in late November, will be long and that there will be some surprise names along the way. Interim coach Thomas Brown will get an interview. The possibilities bandied about most in the media are Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and former Titans coach Mike Vrabel. ESPN reports that the Bears have asked for permission to talk with Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, an idea that has “McCaskey’’ written all over it. McCarthy was the former Packers coach who haunted the Bears when he had Aaron Rodgers in his prime. McCarthy is so last decade – and the decade before that. The McCaskey family, the owners of the team, are so 19th century.
I’m exhausted by the Bears’ assertion that they have ample cap space and draft capital. They’ve been selling the promise of that for a while. It got them to 5-12 this season, which included a 10-game losing streak.
Poles followed the traditional script for a Bears end-of-bad-season press conference. If you guessed that the team is “turning every stone’’ in pursuit of the next head coach, as Poles said it is, it means you’ve listened to at least five of these press conferences. If you anticipated the terms “systems of accountability,’’ “truth teller,’’ “information-gathering mode,’’ “data research’’ and “casting a wide net’’ being uttered, you get bonus points.
I’ll confess to not expecting “healthy friction’’ – Poles’ term for coaches being demanding of players, which he said was missing in 2024. I promise to be better for the next coaching-search press conference.
“The detail, the accountability, the competitive poise in critical situations, finding an edge to win games is something that we came up short with,’’ Poles said.
Feel free to boil that last sentence down to: Tyrique Stevenson. The defensive back’s decision to taunt Commanders fans while a Hail Mary pass was in the air was the torpedo that started the sinking of a season. The Bears lost on that last-second heave in Week 8.
Why, yes, Stevenson was indeed a Poles’ draft pick.
And, oh, yeah, Poles was responsible for hiring Eberflus, which means he was responsible for OKing the hiring of former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who was fired 10 months after joining the Bears.
Poles said he’ll select the next head coach. Perhaps you can understand my cynicism.
In good news, Poles didn’t have team president Kevin Warren with him this time. At the press conference following Eberflus’ firing, Warren loomed over Poles like a high school principal sharing the stage at an assembly with the student-council treasurer. That led to reports of friction between the two – not the healthy kind.
“I do want to address some of the things that I’ve heard about the relationship between Kevin and I that couldn’t be further from the truth,’’ Poles said. “We spend almost every single day together talking about solutions and directions of where we want to be.’’
Put me down as not being comforted by that.
Poles said he’s optimistic about Williams, whom he took with the first overall pick of the 2024 draft. The rookie threw 20 touchdown passes and had just six interceptions, but he was sacked a league-high 68 times, in part because he held onto the ball too long.
“I also know there is so much more left in him, in his game and his skill set,’’ Poles said. “I loved the flashes that he showed. I loved the two-minute drills, his ability to put the team in a position to win games multiple times this season.’’
A Bears general manager defending the quarterback he drafted is the epitome of a Halas Hall press conference to close a season.
I’m absolutely exhausted. How about you?