I do too. But once you get the job and the personnel you were required to take do not work out, you have to get things fixed. If not it will be on your head anyway. IMO it is better to leave and try again elsewhere at that point.
Again...that opportunity to try again elsewhere has to be there. I'm willing to bet Fox is canned after this season, and Pace gets to hire his guy. There are some interesting names potentially out there.
There is still a fair amount of speculation on how much Ted Philips is involved in this stuff. That is what I was trying to address. I feel that Pace, left alone on this, would go out and do a decent candidate search and hire for a new HC.
Again...that opportunity to try again elsewhere has to be there. I'm willing to bet Fox is canned after this season, and Pace gets to hire his guy. There are some interesting names potentially out there.
There is still a fair amount of speculation on how much Ted Philips is involved in this stuff. That is what I was trying to address. I feel that Pace, left alone on this, would go out and do a decent candidate search and hire for a new HC.
Yeah...who knows. We may get a clearer picture on all that in the coming weeks and months.
Let me begin my response by saying I don't believe Carlos Nazario has any better inside info than I do or have ever had so my thinking is he's simply drawn many of the same conclusions I have simply by adding up the numbers and using some common sense. There is other evidence that much of this is true as well and I'll try to bring that in as well as I discuss this.
To this day I still believe very strongly that Pace and Fox were sold to Phillps and GMcC as a package deal by Ernie Accorsi. After having some of the feelers he put out seeking more experienced front office types like Eric DeCosta were rebuffed Pace became his prospect. I believe after their experience with Emery that GMcC and Teddy Bears were reluctant to hire such a young inexperienced guy like Pace as GM so he suggested pairing him with Fox and sold him as the turn around artist he's actually never been.
His team were built for him by his GMs so in reality John Fox had no personnel management skills whatsoever and it shows doesn't it? Still, this was who was to be Ryan Paces "personnel whisperer" and has been until this spring when I believe he finally said enough is enough and stepped away from that relationship. While we have no proof that Pace wanted Adam Gase it does make logical sense that Gase was a far better fit for Pace's vision for the team whereas John Fox is the antithesis of it. We also have Gase's own words that he would only accept the Bears HC position if Cutler was the QB.
Given the fact that Gase accepted the OC position after being passed over for Fox and based on him seeking out Jay personally to replace Ryan Tannehill this season I'd say there some very strong credence in that thinking. But whether it was Gase or possibly Todd Bowles I will go to may grave convinced Ryan Pace would not have hired John Fox if he had the freedom then to make his own choice. Now that he's been given a vote of confidence by GMcC to go with his own plan let's watch how fast he fires Fox. The end of the season seems most likely but if someone like Vic Fangio is willing become an interim HC should Pace decide it's time for Trubisky to start I would not be shocked at all if he fired him prior to that.
Lastly I'll just address that long ago column by Rich Campbell.
What Campbell wrote is actually spot on. My understanding is that Elway was already very upset with the results of the Super Bowl the previous year but for him the last straw was the second one and done exit from the playoffs the following year. Fox was called in for a meeting with Elway and when John laid out his concerns Fox was evasive, refused to take responsibility, suggested the issues were with Manning and told Elway he planned to start Osweiler the following year and get away from the more pass happy Manning. Fox also was said to have asked why simply winning the AFCW four years running wasn't good enough. Anyone who knows John Elway should know that wasn't enough.
I'm with Nazario in his final comment. It's time to part company with another albatross from the past and that albatross is Fox. He never was the right HC for a full rebuild like this but Accorsi sold Phillips and GMcC on him because he wanted to get Pace the GM job. Truth be told I don't think he had many others who even wanted the gig. Now it's time to allow Pace to do what he should have been allowed to do in 2015 and hire his own choice for a HC.
That will give him 2018 and 2019 to complete this rebuilding process and for Trubisky to mature into a top NFL starter under a new coaching regime. If the Bears aren't a consistent winner, NFCN leader, and an annual playoff team by then say goodbye to Ryan Pace as well because the Trubisky pick probably didn't pan out as well as planned. It's time to look forward of today and past John Fox and this misery at what can be done.....what needs to be done to accomplish Paces's goals. He promised improvement this season and we aren't seeing it. He won't have that chance again.
Personally I always wondered about the published "chemistry" between Pace and Fox when this all started. And I personally strongly suspect that Fox was foisted off on Pace basically as a condition of taking the job (if not Fox then another veteran coach).
But I have read some of Nazario's other stuff and would not use him as a source of information. He also posted this article on DaWindyCity from a couple of months ago saying that we might hire Jeff Fisher if we let Fox go. His entire article was an expansion of a 3 sentence footnote at the end of one of Matt Miller's articles, basically some throw away rumor peddling. Jeff Fisher, really? If the conflict between Pace and Fox is one of basic approach (post modern vs. old school, to use Nazarios's own phraseology), why would he ever be a party to hiring a dinosaur like Fisher? IMO if Pace evicts Fox and the end of the season it will be to get one of his own picks.
Chuck I'm in full agreement with you regarding Nazario's writings. With some of them I shake my head and ask WTF are you thinking here. That's the main reason I posted the caveat I did. I don't believe his thinking is any more than having drawn his own conclusions from the same series of event we all have.
Some of this seems far more obvious than another train of thought but for me the absolute benchmark of a separation of powers was Pace's drafting of Trubisky without having taken Fox into his confidence about it prior to the draft. That alone would seem pretty bizarre when QB has to be the top position any HC would be concerned with.
My other conclusions come from a long list of other indicators but also a comment that Adam Gase actually did make in an article about Cutler in which he said he made in clear in his interview that his acceptance of the Bears HC job was contingent on Cutler remaining as the Bears QB. I think it's clear that he felt he could "fix" some of Jay's issues and indeed he did while he was here and there seemed to be no hesitation on his part to tab Jay to replace Tannehill.
That alone could have been a major reason why the Bears went with Fox. Despite his skills as a QB Jay had become extremely unpopular in Chicago and I think even than Phillips and GMcC were looking forward to the day they could move on from him. IMHO both of them are very unconventional thinkers when it comes to managing the Bears. Phillips focus always seems to be on the Bears corporate partners and building the Bears "brand" and far less on the fans and winning while GMcC seems bent on avoiding anything that would embarrass the family and Ginny. I don't think anyone can successfully run an NFL team the way they do. It's like they're apologists and constantly on the defensive.
After the Emery/Trestman debacle to them a HC who'd enjoyed much success here in Denver and had recently taken his team to a Super Bowl seemed like the safest bet. It had all the elements of winning they could sell to Bears fans and that is precisely what they did. I believe they ignored all of the red flags that were attached to Fox including the fact that sans his years here in Denver he was no more than a .500 HC at best and one who'd been fired before due to his massive failure to produce a competitive team in Carolina and get on board with the drafting of Cam Newton.
I believe his history with the Newton deal was one of the main reasons Pace kept him out of the loop as far as drafting Trubisky. Fox had already forced his hand as far as moving on from Cutler and if he wanted to give Mitch time to adapt to the NFL he had to come up with a vet for Fox. Under less pressure to come up with a solution we might have passed on Glennon but other than keeping Hoyer there wasn't much to choose from and it also suited Pace's purpose to disguise his intention of drafting Trubisky. This whole deal looks like just one more overestimation on the part of the Bears.
In hindsight we'd have been much better off hiring Gase and paired him with a more experienced GM but then that would mean that we probably would not have drafted Trubisky. My take on all of this is it's been messed up from the get go and the results tend to confirm that. Pace spent his first two offseasons getting rid of the top offensive producers he had in order to meet Fox's objectives of changing the culture but he's failed to replace them with anyone who could take their place and that in combination with Fox's antiquated approach to offensive football have left us where we are now.
In this article it seems to me that Nazario threw some stuff against the wall to see how much of it would stick and most of it does. No matter what they may say about their relationship in public the actions of both Fox and Pace belie any real synergism between them. When you have a GM and his HC pulling opposite directions not much is gonna get done and it hasn't. Fox needs to go and the sooner the better. Trubisky needs to play and the sooner the better as well. And Pace needs to find a new HC who can organize and motivate this team to win again. Looking at them now it's just not there.
I have no idea what or who Pace wanted. If HC was not his pick, maybe he should've thought about taking this job twice. Its a business ethics issue really.
Alex I believe Pace was thinking more about his own career at that time and talking the Bears GM job was a huge step up for him both in salary and prestige. I also believe Accorsi may have told him of his idea to package him with Fox and cautioned against resisting it or he may not get the job.
I believe that because of the Emery/Trestman fiasco Phillps and GMcC appealed to the NFL for help in doing these hirings so Accorsi wielded a lot of clout then. They weren't gonna bring him in and then shun his advice provided he could bring them a solution they could live with. So that's what Accorsi did.
I think we've all made decisions in our lives based on what we knew we could get done vs whether or not that was the absolute best decision we could make. Accorsi didn't work for the Bears he was simply an NFL paid consultant provided to help them hire a new HC and GM. Once that was done he had no other horse in the race. Certainly no one is writing articles about him these days and how he may have screwed this up. It's all on Phillips and GMcC.
This is why I keep saying these two guys should not be running this football team. They don't have the ability to do it correctly and yet the McCaskeys will not either replace Phillips as the CEO or hire an Exec VP to do what neither Phillips or the McCaskeys are able to do. Once Fox is gone, and lacking that more experienced guy all of the responsibility for hiring a new HC will fall to Pace. Is he ready for that because his job depends on getting it right this time?
I have my issues with the way the entire organization is run and I have for a very long time. Maybe Pace gets this right or maybe he doesn't and if he doesn't it will be Bears fans who will continue to suffer watching a team that reminds me far more of the futility of the Lions under Matt Millen than an Bears team I have experienced in my lifetime. They are just not a well run team and that should be quite obvious to all of us.
Personally I always wondered about the published "chemistry" between Pace and Fox when this all started. And I personally strongly suspect that Fox was foisted off on Pace basically as a condition of taking the job (if not Fox then another veteran coach).
But I have read some of Nazario's other stuff and would not use him as a source of information. He also posted this article on DaWindyCity from a couple of months ago saying that we might hire Jeff Fisher if we let Fox go. His entire article was an expansion of a 3 sentence footnote at the end of one of Matt Miller's articles, basically some throw away rumor peddling. Jeff Fisher, really? If the conflict between Pace and Fox is one of basic approach (post modern vs. old school, to use Nazarios's own phraseology), why would he ever be a party to hiring a dinosaur like Fisher? IMO if Pace evicts Fox and the end of the season it will be to get one of his own picks.
Chuck I'm in full agreement with you regarding Nazario's writings. With some of them I shake my head and ask WTF are you thinking here. That's the main reason I posted the caveat I did. I don't believe his thinking is any more than having drawn his own conclusions from the same series of event we all have.
Some of this seems far more obvious than another train of thought but for me the absolute benchmark of a separation of powers was Pace's drafting of Trubisky without having taken Fox into his confidence about it prior to the draft. That alone would seem pretty bizarre when QB has to be the top position any HC would be concerned with.
My other conclusions come from a long list of other indicators but also a comment that Adam Gase actually did make in an article about Cutler in which he said he made in clear in his interview that his acceptance of the Bears HC job was contingent on Cutler remaining as the Bears QB. I think it's clear that he felt he could "fix" some of Jay's issues and indeed he did while he was here and there seemed to be no hesitation on his part to tab Jay to replace Tannehill.
That alone could have been a major reason why the Bears went with Fox. Despite his skills as a QB Jay had become extremely unpopular in Chicago and I think even than Phillips and GMcC were looking forward to the day they could move on from him. IMHO both of them are very unconventional thinkers when it comes to managing the Bears. Phillips focus always seems to be on the Bears corporate partners and building the Bears "brand" and far less on the fans and winning while GMcC seems bent on avoiding anything that would embarrass the family and Ginny. I don't think anyone can successfully run an NFL team the way they do. It's like they're apologists and constantly on the defensive.
After the Emery/Trestman debacle to them a HC who'd enjoyed much success here in Denver and had recently taken his team to a Super Bowl seemed like the safest bet. It had all the elements of winning they could sell to Bears fans and that is precisely what they did. I believe they ignored all of the red flags that were attached to Fox including the fact that sans his years here in Denver he was no more than a .500 HC at best and one who'd been fired before due to his massive failure to produce a competitive team in Carolina and get on board with the drafting of Cam Newton.
I believe his history with the Newton deal was one of the main reasons Pace kept him out of the loop as far as drafting Trubisky. Fox had already forced his hand as far as moving on from Cutler and if he wanted to give Mitch time to adapt to the NFL he had to come up with a vet for Fox. Under less pressure to come up with a solution we might have passed on Glennon but other than keeping Hoyer there wasn't much to choose from and it also suited Pace's purpose to disguise his intention of drafting Trubisky. This whole deal looks like just one more overestimation on the part of the Bears.
In hindsight we'd have been much better off hiring Gase and paired him with a more experienced GM but then that would mean that we probably would not have drafted Trubisky. My take on all of this is it's been messed up from the get go and the results tend to confirm that. Pace spent his first two offseasons getting rid of the top offensive producers he had in order to meet Fox's objectives of changing the culture but he's failed to replace them with anyone who could take their place and that in combination with Fox's antiquated approach to offensive football have left us where we are now.
In this article it seems to me that Nazario threw some stuff against the wall to see how much of it would stick and most of it does. No matter what they may say about their relationship in public the actions of both Fox and Pace belie any real synergism between them. When you have a GM and his HC pulling opposite directions not much is gonna get done and it hasn't. Fox needs to go and the sooner the better. Trubisky needs to play and the sooner the better as well. And Pace needs to find a new HC who can organize and motivate this team to win again. Looking at them now it's just not there.
I think everybody needs to remember that the FanSided and SBNation cluster of sport sites are largely a training ground for wanna-be sports journalists. Many are just hacks, crazed fans, etc. Some of the authors who stick around end up being pretty good (like Lester Witfong, Josh Sunderbruch and Sam Householder over at Windy City Gridiron). But most just come and go.
Post by tragicslip on Sept 22, 2017 10:03:52 GMT -6
these half measures from owners + ops are killing this team. Gase got Cutler to 90+ QBR in one year. Pace is drafting skill position players to try and create match up opportunities for the team. Tarik motioning out of the backfield should tell the QB if the D is covering with LB, in man, etc. I like Howard and Tarik together in the backfield, 'cause if they try and cover either with an lb and you move them outside a T you clear up space inside for a run if you don't like the coverage matchup.
How is it out TEs aren't feasting on the kind of trouble Tarik presents for a D? throwing 15-20 y inside the hashmarks is an easier throw than a 10 y out but our TEs aren't getting balls until we're into garbage time or 2 scores down. it's like the O is made to curb any explosive potential, but the team is not getting any benefit for that sacrifice. Still throwing pick 6, still going 3 and out and keeping the D on the field too long...
The best thing to watch the bears do so far in a short season is punt. our punt game is strong.
I have no idea what or who Pace wanted. If HC was not his pick, maybe he should've thought about taking this job twice. Its a business ethics issue really.
Alex I believe Pace was thinking more about his own career at that time and talking the Bears GM job was a huge step up for him both in salary and prestige. I also believe Accorsi may have told him of his idea to package him with Fox and cautioned against resisting it or he may not get the job.
I believe that because of the Emery/Trestman fiasco Phillps and GMcC appealed to the NFL for help in doing these hirings so Accorsi wielded a lot of clout then. They weren't gonna bring him in and then shun his advice provided he could bring them a solution they could live with. So that's what Accorsi did.
I think we've all made decisions in our lives based on what we knew we could get done vs whether or not that was the absolute best decision we could make. Accorsi didn't work for the Bears he was simply an NFL paid consultant provided to help them hire a new HC and GM. Once that was done he had no other horse in the race. Certainly no one is writing articles about him these days and how he may have screwed this up. It's all on Phillips and GMcC.
This is why I keep saying these two guys should not be running this football team. They don't have the ability to do it correctly and yet the McCaskeys will not either replace Phillips as the CEO or hire an Exec VP to do what neither Phillips or the McCaskeys are able to do. Once Fox is gone, and lacking that more experienced guy all of the responsibility for hiring a new HC will fall to Pace. Is he ready for that because his job depends on getting it right this time?
I have my issues with the way the entire organization is run and I have for a very long time. Maybe Pace gets this right or maybe he doesn't and if he doesn't it will be Bears fans who will continue to suffer watching a team that reminds me far more of the futility of the Lions under Matt Millen than an Bears team I have experienced in my lifetime. They are just not a well run team and that should be quite obvious to all of us.
Im well aware of that, but it still raises the same ethical dilemma. If HC was not his pick, and he thought results will not be optimal, then he should've passed on this job. If he took it either way, it is reasonable and only fair he will pay for it in the end.
I agree. If hiring Fox was a condition of employment for Pace, he should have walked. But if it was and Pace wants to can Fox age hire his own man, he should do it and resign if he cannot.
Tough call...so few of these jobs present themselves. I can understand why he would take the job.
I agree. I don't know how much Pace is getting but I think we can all agree it's a damn sight more than he was getting in NOLA AND it was another step up the career ladder. We don't know whether or not Fox as HC was a condition of his being hired or simply that we was persuaded to accept this by Ernie Accorsi who I believe is getting off the hook easier than he should be.
Since he is or was an NFL paid consultant maybe we should look more carefully at how it's run and IMHO not well.
This kinda deal goes all the way back to when Mikey was forced to hire an outside consultant to hire Jerry Angelo. So the lack of expertise involved with hiring top talent to run their team has been a McCaskey issue for a very long time.
I have no idea what or who Pace wanted. If HC was not his pick, maybe he should've thought about taking this job twice. Its a business ethics issue really.
+1,000 I have a difficult time believing Ryan Pace agreed to come here to simply be a powerless shill with no say regarding who his coaches would be. The guy would have to be a blooming idiot to do that and mortgage his future in the NFL as a GM. GM's often get 1 shot at making it. It's not like coaching where you can come back multiple times if you crap the bed someplace. Look at Angelo now. And how about Phil Emery? Those guys will never be GMs again. Ever.
Give Ryan Pace some credit here. He chose to go with Fox. I can see why he felt that was a good choice at the time. Pace will get another shot at hiring a HC, and I'll bet he gets us a good one.
Tough call...so few of these jobs present themselves. I can understand why he would take the job.
I agree. I don't know how much Pace is getting but I think we can all agree it's a damn sight more than he was getting in NOLA AND it was another step up the career ladder. We don't know whether or not Fox as HC was a condition of his being hired or simply that we was persuaded to accept this by Ernie Accorsi who I believe is getting off the hook easier than he should be.
Since he is or was an NFL paid consultant maybe we should look more carefully at how it's run and IMHO not well.
This kinda deal goes all the way back to when Mikey was forced to hire an outside consultant to hire Jerry Angelo. So the lack of expertise involved with hiring top talent to run their team has been a McCaskey issue for a very long time.
So, its ok to take over a very responsible position, although you know it is not under your conditions, because it pays much more? I have a real problem digesting this. And hopefully that is not what he's done.
