Bears quarterback Caleb Williams should have known he was the victim of a prank call last week when, within the first few seconds, fake Ben Johnson didn’t ask, “Who’s in charge of the mess at Halas Hall?”
The real Lions offensive coordinator surely wants to know what the Bears’ power structure is, whether general manager Ryan Poles is on a one-year leash and why no head coach has been able to win a Super Bowl in Chicago since Mike Ditka. I’m guessing the 20 or so other candidates the Bears are interested in have the same questions, in addition to another one: “Twenty candidates! Are you selling a job or timeshares?”
The question hanging over the entire process is why anyone would want the Bears head coaching position right now. Team chairman George McCaskey isn’t wrong with his smug opinion that when the Bears call people listen. But the idea of the Bears — all that history — is a lot different than the reality of the Bears — all that losing.
McCaskey believes that their pedigree as one of the NFL’s original teams is a selling point, but smart football coaches don’t deal in antiquities. They deal in winning. The coaches with options, such as Johnson, know that the one thing that makes the Bears’ job desirable is Williams.
There really isn’t much else to the franchise these days, but if you’re a Bears fan hoping to get the best head coach, that might be sufficient. The promise of Williams is enough to lure many coaches to Chicago. He had an up-and-down rookie season, but the important word there is “rookie.’’ He didn’t play as well as some of his draft-class brethren, but he had been the first overall pick in the 2024 draft because most everybody agreed that his talent was extraordinary. No coach will think that a year under former head coach Matt Eberflus, interim coach Thomas Brown and three offensive coordinators (one interim) ruined Williams. All they’ll see is his talent, which many draft analysts described as once-in-a-generation.
Whether those experts are right remains to be seen, but the lure of Williams is still powerful. A young, physically blessed quarterback would have 99% of coaches asking where to sign up.
The rest of it when it comes to the Bears? Not what you’d call attractive. It’s hard to tell who’s calling the shots at Halas Hall, with team president Kevin Warren having his Alexander Haig “I’m in control here’’ moment at a press conference after Eberflus’ midseason firing. That came with Poles, who’s supposed to have the power to hire head coaches, at his side. The next press conference, to discuss what went wrong in a 5-12 season, featured Poles alone at the microphone. But asked by media members afterward if he’s committed to Poles, Warren said, “When we say long term, I mean, a year is a lifetime.’’
For a coach trying to evaluate the Bears’ operation, the quote is a sign at the city limit telling visitors that they enter at their own risk. A coach wants to know that the man hiring him is going to be around for a while. He wants to know that a new GM won’t arrive in a year or two, one who might not look so fondly on his predecessor’s head coach.
Warren probably would like his now-infamous quote back, but as they say at as-is sales, too late. He immediately followed up with some nice thoughts about Poles, but they were drowned out by his one-year-is-a-lifetime sonic boom.
“I trust Ryan,’’ Warren said. “I trust the process that he has put together. I’m confident it will yield positive results. We will hire a world-class coach, whether it’s Thomas Brown or someone who currently does not work in our organization. We will get this right.’’
A coaching candidate with choices wouldn’t want to walk into the disarray of an organization that has struggled for decades to find the right leaders and to find a way to win. But a coaching candidate with choices might be willing to look past all that if the struggling organization has someone with Williams’ potential on the roster. A good quarterback can mask all sorts of problems.
If he’s smart, the next head coach will insist on having a say in building an offensive line to protect the kid, who was sacked a league-high 68 times in 2024.
Williams had to change his phone number after last week’s prank call. Too bad. Fake Ben Johnson could have asked another question: “If Ryan Poles had to pay you $1,000 for each bruise you incurred this season, would he be destitute?’’