Despite John Fox’s refrain that he’s not worried about his job security after the 2017 season, he’ll most likely be coaching his final Bears game this Sunday.
After that, the extremely important search for the next Bears head coach begins. Indeed, as the team takes their rookie quarterback into his first full season next year, they’ll want to surround him not only with quality players on the field, but also the perfect coach for his particular style and developmental needs.
But just a few days ago, there were some reports that Bears President (and non-football-operations executive) Ted Phillips was “doing his homework” on potential replacements for Fox. This … made us a little nervous, as you’d prefer – in general – that football decisions are held for the football side of the organization (i.e. GM Ryan Pace).
Well, after some initial pushback on that report, we’re getting even further confirmation that things will go as you hope:
Two #NFL sources confirmed to me this morning that Bears GM Ryan Pace will be in charge of the Bears coaching search when it happens and not team president Ted Phillips. Former GM: “Pace is 100% in charge and he will get the guy he wants. That job is extremely attractive.”
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) December 27, 2017
WHEW.
According to two NFL sources, per David Kaplan, it will indeed be Pace, not Phillips, leading the search for the Bears next head coach. That’s extremely good news, not only because it means Phillips’ role was either tightened up (or, more likely, exaggerated/misunderstood to begin with), but also because Pace is widely considered a bright football mind and is arguably in a better position than anyone to know what this team needs in a coach.
Given that Fox was somewhat pushed onto Pace when he first became GM, I’m interested to see what a Bears team looks like when Pace hand picks the head coach and the franchise quarterback. At a minimum, now, we’ll be able to judge and grade him fairly.
So, yes, this is very good news, even if it was somewhat expected.
And before we let you go, let’s not ignore the second-half of the tweet, either: “… He will get the guy he wants. That job is extremely attractive.”
I think, sometimes, we forget that despite many consecutive seasons of embarrassing losses, Chicago/the Bears is still a desirable job to land in the NFL. And there’s no better time to join up with a squad than the year after it drafts its franchise QB, right?
It’s no guarantee for success, of course, but you can probably bet that the front office will look to add to the roster and surround Mitch Trubisky with as many quality pieces as possible, not subtract/hold back any resources. And, as a head coach, you can’t ask for much more than that.