It’s Time For Chicago Bears To Pick A GM, To Help Hire A Coach

Say this for the Chicago Bears: They are Zoom warriors as they conduct parallel searches for their next head coach and general manager. 

By the Chicago Sun-Times’ count, they had interviewed eight candidates for GM and six for head coach through Tuesday. They also have an interest in seven other reported GM candidates and four more coaches.

That’s a whole lot of activity for Week One after sacking coach Matt Nagy and GM Ryan Pace. But you wonder if they’ve reached a point where they need to expedite the GM hire and put the coaching hire on hold for at least a little while, so the new general manager can play a major role in picking his head coach. 

When Pace was hired to replaced Phil Emery after the 2014 season, he selected John Fox as the head coach eight days later. That’s how this has to work if the GM is truly in charge of the football operation.

While it’s intriguing that the Bears have interviewed several of the hot names on the coaching front — including former Dolphins coach Brian Flores, Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus — the focus belongs on the question of who will head their front office.

No strong favorite has emerged from the Bears’ gang of 15 GM candidates, although their fixation with the Packers suggests Eliot Wolf could be of particular interest. 

Wolf is the son of former Packers GM Ron Wolf, making him of Hall of Fame lineage. He rose through the ranks of the Green Bay front office before leaving when the Packers passed him over to hire Brian Gutekunst as GM in 2018. He has since worked as an assistant GM with the Browns and as a scouting consultant for the Patriots. Wolf is also in play for the GM vacancy in Minnesota. 

Bears Chairman George McCaskey is using Hall of Famer Bill Polian as a consultant to run the parallel job searches. McCaskey has directed Polian to use an internal committee to help find and evaluate candidates. It includes team president Ted Phillips, VP of player engagement LaMar Campbell and senior VP of diversity, equity and inclusion Tanesha Wade.

Polian’s ties to Indianapolis and Buffalo appear to be playing a role in the search. The Bears have either interviewed or are expected to interview six men currently employed by Polian teams, along with Jim Campbell, a former head coach of the Colts and Lions. 

They have interviewed Bills assistant GM Joe Schoen and Colts assistant GM Ed Dodds and are reportedly pursuing an interview with Colts college scouting director Morocco Brown, who spent seven years with the Bears. In addition to Caldwell, Daboll and Eberflus, the Bears are expected to interview Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier for their coaching vacancy. Frazier, a member of the only Bears team to win the Super Bowl, is of special note.

They are also reported to have interest in Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn and both of the coordinators in Tampa Bay, offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. Like Caldwell, Quinn and Bowles have head coaching experience, which would seem to help their causes. 

But there’s an order to the hiring process. This is the week to select a GM, who should play a leading role in the search for a head coach.