Time is On OUr Side

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Time could be on Bears' side

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January 15, 2010 BY MIKE MULLIGAN mmulligan@suntimes.com The Bears are at a crossroads, but maybe not the intersection everyone seems to think they've reached.

 

The perception is that the coordinator search stands at the corner of Desperate and Lonely. Coaching candidates have come and gone. Others never arrived. The clock is ticking. The fan base is twitching. There's a growing belief the Bears not only can't get the right guy, they can't get any guy.

 

While you couldn't call the coordinator search inspirational, you can't deem it a disaster, either. What have the Bears lost thus far? Jeremy Bates on offense and Perry Fewell on defense. That takes them out of a comfort zone, and when that happens, there are two ways to go -- shrivel up and die or embrace the creative tension and find the best in yourself.

 

''It's going to take time,'' Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said. ''And we have time. We're going to use it.''

 

Angelo and his staff are working long hours paring down lists and doing background checks on candidates, with as many as 10 possibly in the mix for an interview on the offensive side alone. It's a process, one that could stretch past the Super Bowl on Feb. 7. If that sounds bizarre, it shouldn't. All it means is that when the team made the decision to fire Ron Turner, there was no star candidate in mind to pull off the miraculous fix. Instead, the idea was to cast a wide net and search for the right guy.

 

 

 

 

The above is a real good piece and it is the way I feel. I was really bummed about losing Fewell but am excited about what the team is looking at on the offensive side of the ball. Plus the Patriots Dcoord is now available and you never know, maybe the Bears could go that way (although the %'s are probably like 1% that they would consider him).

 

 

 

[ChileBear]

The above is a real good piece and it is the way I feel. I was really bummed about losing Fewell but am excited about what the team is looking at on the offensive side of the ball. Plus the Patriots Dcoord is now available and you never know, maybe the Bears could go that way (although the %'s are probably like 1% that they would consider him).

Read that and agree, as I noted in another post on the staff taking their time to make the selections.

[AZ54]

It's not the time it takes us to hire someone that bothers me, it's the refusal of some to interview that worries me. The longer this process drags out the more tainted it appears. That could dissuade some good candidates from interviewing. This is an uphill battle hiring coaches when the head coach might be gone next year. Now if JA has the authority I believe he has if Lovie leaves next year he could very well force the new head coach to keep certain assistant coaches he likes. The flipside of this one year experiment is that you get some former head coaches like Tice who might see this as potentially leading to another shot at being a head coach.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

I have to also agree. Not sure what all the excitement is about not hurrying the process. There are plenty of viable candidates out there that are on teams that are in the playoffs that could be interviewed. Leslie Frazier is one that comes to mind. He is currently the DC at Minnesota and being looked at for a few HC spots but what's to say that he wouldn't think about coming to the Bears staff as the DC knowing that Lovie may not be around after next year? He does have ties to Chicago after all. Who knows?

 

Speaking of "who knows", what happens if Lovie does get the team into the playoffs next year? Is he a repeat of Marvin Lewis: who was in a similar status this time last year, and was just voted the AFC coach of the year? What then??

 

In the meantime: GO CARDINALS!!!!