NEWSLETTER
It’s December and you have better odds of winning a SNKRS lottery draw for a pair of retro Air Jordans than the Chicago Bears have of making the playoffs.
Wow, that line was painful to write on multiple levels.
But at least with that being the case, the seat underneath Matt Nagy is heating up, while the rumor mill churns out future Bears coaching candidates. Granted, this isn’t new to us. Nagy’s job status has been up in the air for a while, and rumors regarding potential replacement options have been rattling around football circles for some time. HOWEVER, the newest name on the block comes as a bit of a surprise.
ESPN’s Dan Graziano and teammate Jeremy Fowler share industry buzz surrounding future NFL head-coaching gigs. And one of the most interesting tidbit came from Graziano, who writes: “There’s a fair bit of smoke connecting Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to Chicago.”
Smoke? Already? Wow. This is truly quite the nugget.
But the Bears? Really?
I struggle to make the direct connection right now. Not that I’m saying ESPN’s reporting is inaccurate. It’s realistic to hear Candidate X is a possibility for Team Y if Coach Z gets shown the door. But it is challenging – at least to me – to make a one-for-one connection when we’re unsure who is making that decision in the first place. Remember, GM Ryan Pace’s contract is up at the end of this season. It’s tough to envision the George McCaskey-Ted Phillips brain trust green-lighting Pace getting a head-start on rounding up a list of candidate. And because McCaskey comes off as an old school cat, it is even tougher to imagine him making the calls and putting feelers out there.
After all, McCaskey and Phillips have long said they don’t make football decisions.
And if that’s the case, then the possibility of McCaskey doing the dirty work in floating this is out the window.
At the end of the day, I’d still expect Leslie Frazier’s name to be connected to the Bears opening. I mean, his starring on the Super Bowl XX championship team alone might get him an interview. But beyond that, Frazier will one of the most interesting coaches whose name figures to make their way around the coaching carousel this offseason.
Frazier is the defensive coordinator for a Bills unit that allows the fewest yards, second fewest points, and rocks with Football Outsiders’ top DVOA rating. That makes for something worth circling on the résumé. And because he is in Buffalo right now, the idea of bringing Bills QBs Coach Ken Dorsey with him to run the offense looks awfully tantalizing. That’s a potential 1-2 punch that you could see making sense. And because Frazier has previous head coaching experience (Vikings 2010-13) under his belt. It comes with an uninspiring 21-32-1, but Frazier could be the type who learns something after leaving Minnesota that he can apply if given a second chance as a head coach. In an offseason in which assistants getting a second lease on life as a head coach in the NFL might be the vogue thing, Frazier is certainly deserving of consideration.
Whether it’s from the Bears or another team with a job opening remains to be seen.
