NEWSLETTER
Indianapolis Colts’ assistant general manager Ed Dodds, who interviewed for the Bears general manager position on Monday, has informed the Bears that he is withdrawing his name from Chicago’s pool of potential GM candidates, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
#Colts assistant GM Ed Dodds informed the #Bears he’s withdrawing his name from their GM search, per source.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 19, 2022
Dodds and Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus interviewed with the Bears on Monday. Today, we learned that Eberflus had been invited back for a second interview for the Bears vacant head coaching position. That news this morning made it seem like the Bears might be closer to a decision on the GM of the future than we imagined if they’re already inviting coaches back for second interviews.
George McCaskey said last week that the organization would like to hire a general manager first and a head coach second with the help of the general manager, but did say that if forced to do so for the right candidate, they would make the hires in the inverse order. Coaches that might necessitate that type of move would be Jim Harbaugh, Brian Flores, or the likes. Head coaching candidates with experience and a desire to have control over the roster and personnel would require a general manager willing to work in that type of power-share. Therefore, the general manager in that scenario could be hired second.
Matt Eberflus is not that type of head coaching candidate, so when I heard this morning that he was getting a second interview, that made me believe that the Bears were closer to hiring a GM than we thought, and I immediately drew the obvious parallel to Ed Dodds who works with Eberflus in Indianapolis. Bill Polian obviously has deep ties to Indianapolis, and Dodds has been a hot commodity in this landscape before, and then there was the heightened interest in Eberflus this morning. All that considered, a Dodds-Eberflus GM-HC pairing seemed like a plausible outcome for the Bears.
Except…
Dodds’ interview went terribly. This is unsurprising. https://t.co/sWYK4CHYB4
— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) January 19, 2022
Jeff Hughes of Da Bears Blog (who is as plugged as anyone on this Bears GM/head coach search right now) revealed this afternoon that Dodds’ interview with the Bears went “terribly.” I’m interpreting this as the interview went terribly from the Bears’ perspective of Dodds, and they weren’t interested anymore. But of course, Mike Lombardi was on the Mulley and Haugh Show this morning and said that people he has spoken to who have interviewed for the Bears GM job aren’t impressed with the Bears leadership’s questions.
So, maybe it’s Dodds who feels that the interview went terribly, and he doesn’t believe in the Bears’ leadership enough to leave Indianapolis for Chicago. After all, we saw Dodds interview for the Carolina Panthers GM vacancy last January only to remove his name from consideration for the job shortly after his interview.
It’s possible that the Bears weren’t impressed with Dodds. It’s also possible that Dodds wasn’t impressed with the Bears. Either way, Dodds is out of the picture now. Could that impact Matt Eberflus’ interest in the Bears job moving forward? Might he share Dodds’ opinion? Could the Bears have wanted to pair Dodds with Eberflus and now might look in another direction? All are possibilities to consider.
Eberflus’ second interview with the Bears is reportedly set for next week (Eberflus also has a second interview with the Jacksonville Jaguars next week), so we’ll know more soon enough.
