Rapsheet: Sweaty Teddy involved already in evaluating HC's

Rapaport is wrong as often as he's right but in this case it makes sense.  No matter what GMcC has said in the past Phillips will continue to interject himself into football matters for as long as he wears the title CEO.  If for no other reason than coaches contracts being part of a teams admin expenses and not cap related he will insert his influence and give opinions which the McCaskeys will listen to.

To be honest I believe he somehow intimidates them using is knowledge of the financial side.  They are not money people and never have been.  Ed McCaskey was night club singer and a horse player when he met and married Ginny.  GSH "gave" him a job with the Bears so he could support her and his family which grew quite large.  GSH often said he was the dumbest SOB he'd ever met and made certain he had little to do with actual team ops.

Nothing, and I mean absolutely zero has happened since GSH's death tells me that the McCaskeys know much of anything about managing an NFL team.  Mikey was the LAST person GSH wanted running the team yet Ginny defied that wish and made him Team President anyway.  A huge part of the problem is the Ginny still controls 80% of the votes on the Board of Director and she knows even less about it all than her sons.  Maybe this article will shed a bit more light on why that mess is so dysfunctional.

chicago.suntimes.com/sports/mccaskey-expert-says-family-wasnt-meant-to-run-bears/

Mikey had enough business sense.  Maybe too much, but no football sense and almost single handley dismantled the '80s Bears.  There was an older brother who should have preceded GMcC in the pecking order but like Mugs Halas he also passed away.  GMcC was an attorney for the State of Illinois and I've yet to meet one or any judge who understand much about economics beside what a lawyers billing rate should be.  So by in large the McCaskey fortune is tied up in the Bears an overseen by Ted Phillips who knows money but not football.

No one at the level of a corporate CEO works without a contract spelling out their level of authority so we can safely assume Phillips has one as well.  That contract would assumedly give him operational control of the team meaning anything having to do with team ops falls under his realm of influence.  So IMHO the ONLY way to remove that influence is to remove Phillips and that is something that despite the team lack of success on the field the McCaskeys have been loath to do because they believe he's made them very wealthy despite that.

This is somewhat the same kind of "NFL owner think" that has them all voting to pay Goodell a disgusting amount of money even though he's arguably the worst Commissioner the NFL has ever had.  Yet, he's made them all very rich too so he not only keep his job but he gets even more money to do it poorly.  This is how NFL owners think and behave because it's a rich boys private club and they run a monopoly so whose gonna convince them differently?  The McCaskeys are all part of this as well and they tend to go along with it.

It's gonna be on Ryan Pace to use whatever control his contract allows him to use in order to get his guy but in the end both Phillips and GMcC will have to approve that hire and they are the twins who've brought us Marc Trestman and John Focks.  To me this situation is not at all comforting.  Phillips needs to go but I'd bet my last bottom dollar it won't happen.