Warren believes his team’s vacant job will be “the most coveted” in the NFL this year, citing rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, a wealth of other young talent and plenty of salary cap room to fill in the holes.
“I am confident, I am energized, I am excited about this unique opportunity,” Warren said Monday. “We will get this right, and we’ll be sitting up here in the future at some point in time – we’ll look back on this day and say this was the day that we really started pointing in the right direction to build the franchise that all of us know that we want to build.”
And therein lies the problem. This is a team in a perpetual state of distress, careening from one bad decision to another no matter who’s in charge. Why should anyone have any faith that this time it’s going to be different?
The only reason Warren and general manager Ryan Poles were meeting with the media was because of the team’s historic decision to fire a coach midseason, and the shambolic way in which it happened.
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The Bears let Matt Eberflus meet with the media Friday, a day after that Thanksgiving Day debacle seen by the entire country, only to fire him a few hours later. It was a humiliation no coach deserves, regardless of how inept, and you can be sure Eberflus’ potential successors took note of it.
While Warren acknowledged the team could have done better – ya think? – he insisted they weren’t intentionally trying to make Eberflus look like a fool. Rather, he said, they had not decided his future yet.
“I think you know me. I think you know Ryan. I think you know George McCaskey, and I think you know the McCaskey family. One thing we stand for is family, integrity and doing it the right way,” Warren said.
Yet this was the complete opposite.
Look, everyone knew Eberflus was getting fired. His late-game decisions were atrocious, the Bears were undisciplined and they are in danger of hampering Williams’ development just as they did with Justin Fields. The question was when, and the last-second brain lapse that cost the Bears a chance to upset the Detroit Lions on national TV gave the team no choice.
So either Warren isn’t being truthful, which is bad, or the Bears are completely incompetent and unprepared, which is worse. Either way, it should be a very large and very red flag to anyone considering attaching themselves to the Bumbling Bears.
But it’s not the only one!
Poles is in his third season as GM. While the Bears have never said how long his contract is, he and the new coach are unlikely to be in alignment unless the team extends Poles. Which means if the Bears continue to struggle, he is likely out and whomever Poles hires as coach is going to be on an island.
Unless, of course, they both get fired at the same time. Which, given Chicago’s recent history, is entirely possible!
“We’re open to talking through that,” Poles said when asked about the potential mismatch. “I think if you just ask around in this building, how we treat people, that shouldn’t be an issue at all.”
Just going to ignore the flames still smoldering from that PR dumpster fire that was Eberflus’ firing, I see.
Poles has his own shortcomings – he hired Eberflus in the first place and either signed off on or didn’t stop Eberflus from hiring Shane Waldron as the offensive coordinator – but he has Warren’s support. Poles also should have a better understanding of what kind of coach Chicago needs – cough, offensive-minded, cough – given the personnel they have.
But as any Bears fan will tell you, they’ve been here before.
The Bears have been putting the fun in dysfunction for, oh, about 30 years now. Go ahead. Google Dave McGinnis. Marc Trestman. That loss to the hated Green Bay Packers in the NFC title game. Ryan Pace squandering the No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft. Pretty much every one of the losses this season.
While some teams seem to have success and professionalism in their DNA, others simply do not. The Bears might not be quite the train wreck of the New York Jets or the Las Vegas Raiders, but they’re not far off. They’ve been turning the corner for so long now they don’t even recognize they’ve been going in circles.
The one constant in all of this is the McCaskey family. Fans have been begging them for years to sell the team, but that’s not going to happen. The Bears aren’t just a team or an investment for the McCaskeys. As the daughter and grandchildren of George ‘Papa Bear’ Halas, the Bears are their identity. They’ve been criticized for running the team like a family business, but that’s what it is.
So here the Bears are again. Management and fans have to have faith that this latest reboot is going to work because what choice is there? For those considering taking the Bears job, however, buyer beware.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.