Lack of Personal Accountability is Why Fox Needs to Go......
Oct 17, 2016 13:24:25 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 13:24:25 GMT -6
Bears lack accountability following Week 6 collapse to Jaguars
Oct 2, 2016; Chicago, IL, USA;
By: Lorin Cox | 4 hours ago
The Chicago Bears blew a 13-0 lead to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the fourth quarter of their Week 6 collapse, and there’s really no way to pretty it up. They were awful when it counted most, and the team sits at 1-5 because of it.
When a team is as down and defeated as the Bears are now, they need leadership to step up, take accountability and inspire confidence in the rest of the group. Chicago doesn’t have that, and it starts with the head coach first and foremost.
John Fox’s post-game remarks look and sound nice and flowery, but they send the wrong message to a frustrated locker room.
“It’s not a lack of heart, lack of trying. Our guys battle. We just don’t play well enough right now,” Fox said. “That’s on all of us, everybody in there. Coaches are giving their all, players are giving their all. We’ve got to play better to win games, and today was much like a few of our other outings.”
Isn’t that nice? Everybody is trying so hard, but darn, it just didn’t go their way this week. Oh well. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles, right?
That’s not what a locker room of NFL players want to hear.
Fox is the man in charge of this team, and ultimately, the buck stops with him. When anything goes wrong, that’s on him, first and foremost. If players “need to play better,” then that’s on him. His job is to make them play better, but the head coach did not take the blame off of anyone and put it where it belongs.
Instead, it’s “we” who needs to do better. He diverts the blame from himself and puts it on every player in the locker room and the coaching staff, and that message can’t go over well.
Does Willie Young need to “play better” after picking up five sacks in the last two games? He’s done his job. Is Kyle Long not playing “well enough” after not allowing a single quarterback pressure in the game according to Pro Football Focus? What more could he do?
Fox’s answers, or lack thereof, could really rub guys like Young and Long the wrong way. It diverts blame away from where it’s deserved and doesn’t hold anyone accountable for their mistakes. He shouldn’t throw anyone under the bus, but he needs to stand by his players and be a leader.
The best head coaches know the right way to handle these types of situations. Bill Belichick has even gone as far to take the blame for something as minor as a special teams penalty because he knows his responsibility to his players, and he takes the blame even when he might not deserve it.
That’s the type of leadership a team needs from its head coach, and the Bears don’t have it. All they have is players with “heart” who are “giving their all,” and they need their head coach to do the same.
He's rushing ahead of even that at lightning speed.
