nfoligno

Personally, I would argue the only coaches likely to join our staff right now are ones with pretty weak, or no, options. I heard of no other team showing interest in Tice. He was not working at all when we signed him, right? That means his options may have been us or unemployment. Martz has openly said he wants to work for us. Um, what other coaching options does he have? Nadda. Plank said he wants to be our DC. Well, who else is looking at him even as a position coach, much less coordinator. It seems like any candidate we have looked at w/ other options, whether that option is another a new team or staying w/ a current team, they choose not to come here. So it may be a stretch to say no one wants to come here under the current situation, but I don't think it is a stretch to say anyone w/ other options would not look highly on joining the bears.

I think I just threw up in my mouth. Verp. Many will say Martz is no worse than some of these other names thrown out there. I want to agree, but here is a big problem for me. I fear that Martz will not only prove a bad fit for the team this year, but could actually hurt the development of this offense. Part of me says screw it. Let Lovie hire his BFF to run the offense, and then promote his other BFF to run the D (Marinelli). No way Lovie could shed responsibility at that point. Team will fail in 2010, but that is likely to happen regardless of who we hire. So we finally get the house cleaning so many of us want. Even though there is a side of me saying this, the idea still makes me sick. On offense, we have a franchise QB. While I do not agree we have to cater to him, we do need an OC that compliments him, and I do not believe that is Martz. We have a "potential" franchise TE, and yet we are looking at bringing in an OC that doesn't realize the TE is an offensive weapon. He thinks its simply slang for view of a hot chic walking away. We have some nice young WR talent, but if his system doesn't fit for Cutler, are these receivers going to be wasted? Will their development be stunted? We need to get Forte back on track, and yet we are looking at an OC that doesn't believe in running the ball. Oh yea, and I have read more than a few aticles talking about how Martz' system is quite different from Tice's blocking scheme, and that makes you wonder as well. Can I finally point out that in the two cities Martz has worked since losing the HC job, he has not gotten along w/ either HC. One is a former Bear most all here still love today (Singletary) and the other is a freaking coach on our defense (Marinelli). Sorry, but I just can't get excited about this move. Even if this is the move that helps get rid of Lovie, I fear long term damage he can cause will be felt long after he is gone.

Call me crazy, but I have a feeling if Zack, you or I were to take a round house from Tyson today, we would not know the difference between Tyson of today and of 10 years ago. We would be out cold on the ground.

I think you are missing the point of the discussion madman. Lucky says the bears are cheap, and argues that, even if you take into consideration Lovie's extension, when you look at the contracts put together, he would still paid average or below average. Thus, he argues the extension does not offset the initial cheap contract, and further proves the owners are cheap. I argue that while the initial contract was low, the extension (a) even when averaged out still puts Lovie way above average among HCs and ( shows the owners are not in fact cheap, but simply have a different philosophy than some others. You get an owner like Dan Snyder, who will go out and hire big names and pay big dollars. He will even go and get a coach to come out of a decade old retirement and pay him very well. How did that workout again. You have many teams though which do not go this route. They hire coordinators. They hire young guys who could be the next big thing. Look at the Super Bowl this year. Is either team led by a coach who was an experienced HC prior to joining that team? Nope. Caldwell was the assist HC/QB coach for Indy when Dungy retired. Payton was also the QB coach/assist HC for Dallas when he took over NO. Okay, how about if we spread it out to the teams knocked out last year. Childress was the OC for Phily prior to becoming Minny's HC. Ryan was previously the DC for Baltimore. Take a look at this article to further my point, http://www.indysportsnation.com/sports/blo...,0,370426.story At the end of the day, Lucky will argue the team doesn't go out and get big name coaches w/ price tags to go along with their resumes for the very simple reason that they are cheap. I argue it is more a philosophical difference than simply a financial one. I argue that if you look around the league, many (most) teams are actually led by HCs who did not have prior HC experience, yet not all these owners are considered cheap. I point to an owner like Jerry Jones, and owner few call cheap, but has been well known to in fact be cheap when it comes to hiring his staff. To me, its just like the draft. It isn't a question of what philosophy or direction you follow, but who you take. If you believe in best player available, or draft for need, what matters at the end of the day is who you end up with. If you pick ends up a stud, how many are going to argue your philosophy. If you traded down from a high pick for multiple picks, it is the end result that matters. If those players bomb, they someone like Lucky will say we were cheap and traded down. If those picks boom, you will not hear anyone complain we were too cheap to pick high. Same thing w/ coaching. Lets say for the hell of it Lovie not only took the team to the SB, but continued the success after that. Lets say Lovie was considered an upper tier HC today. Would anyone really be jumping on this board to claim our owners were cheap when the found him? Nope. So that is our argument. He says cheap. I say its more philosophy.

Lovie's average salary. Okay, did a bit of checking. Per the info I found, Lovie's original deal was to pay him an average of $1.45m per season. Prior to the final season, he signed a 5yr/$22m extension. $2m of this extension was to be added to the original $1.45 he was set to earn. Thus, at the end of the day, he ended up w/ an 8 year deal (original 4, plus new 4) for a total of $27.8 ($5.8m from original 4yr deal plus new $22m). Remember, he didn't lose the money from the final year of his original deal. The extension added to that final year, rather than replacing it. So if you divide that $27.8m total by the 8 years of his two contracts, you will end up just shy of $3.5m per season. Doing some checking, I found this, According to Sports Business Daily, the average annual salary for an NFL head coach is $2.5 million per year. So, according to this report, at the end of the day, Lovie will receive about $1m per year more than the league average for HCs. That is well above average. Now, I am no accountant, and would not have a clue how to calculate the interst stuff you were talking about, but I can not believe the interest would come remotely close to offsetting this figure to the point of making his salary even average, much less below average. So you can argue the method of original hires, but it would seem your argument that, even if you consider his extension, the bears are still cheap, is sort of blown out of the water.

IMHO, there are more than a few teams working along such thinking right now though. Look at the coaching turnover the last couple years, then look at this year. Several other teams were reported to be down on their coach, but ultimately made no change, and they too were thought to maintain the status quo due to the impending CBA issues. The biggest difference, IMHO, is they didn't fire much of their staff below the HC, thus creating a situation as we are in. Further, I think you will find many teams treating FA very carefully, which also will show we are far from alone in being careful w/ the purse.

But will it matter at that point? If there is no football, does it really matter who our HC is?

I have no problem w/ Zorn as a QB coach, but want no part of him as a OC. His playcalling was a flat out joke. He made Turner look like a genius.

Agreed, but to be frank, few of the names I have read of late interest me either. I am not a fan of the WR coach from Indy, even if he were inclined to leave. Sorry, but I give Manning far more credit (not to mention Moore) for the develop of Indy WRs than I do their WR coach. And I have zero interest in the NO TE coach.

Question. Many believe Farve is gone, and that means the team will have to look to Tarvaris. There has also been rumor of trading for McNabb. If what you say about Rogers is true, why would they want to let him walk, not to mention walk to a division rival. To me, their not blocking the move makes me question how much his own employer truly values him.

Agreed also as to the Chud aspect. That was also my first thought. I doubt his per year salary was so low that he was considered lowballed, but he was likely looking for a 3 year deal (if not more) and we offered 2, which would make the total money look very lowballed. Disagree though on the rest. You say it is whining and we should just wait until they hire someone, but the Bears are making themselves look like blundering idiots, and I think fans have every reason to be upset at the moment. In terms of the media, the Bears at the moment are just a step below that of Al Davis, and many are even pointing out that a coach choose Al Davis over us. That sort of embarassment warrants comments. I think there may be a tad less complaint if our history of coaching moves was better. But lets be honest. We are not entering this w/ a great rep in hiring coaches, and the manner is which the team has gone about this makes it appear even worse.

1. people point to lovie as an example of how we have changed and pay our employees above standard. it is not true if you look closely at how we operate. we lowball the initial candidates, per lovie who was one of the lowest paid HC's in the entire nfl (the same can be said with angie), and in the same breath HAVE to lowball his assistants otherwise they would make more than the HC/GM. What a horrible notion. Make someone prove themselves before we shell out millions upon millions. What an awful idea. Sorry, but we are not the only team that follows this model. As I have said before, Jerry Jones follows this model, and few call him a cheap owners. if the HC performs even reasonably well we then give him a raise and extension. in the meantime the costs of coaching salaries has risen over the years our coaches were getting paid a pittance. this in itself dumbs down the amount of the raise. so you have to average the salaries these coaches get over their entire tenure in chicago which gives you the true salary base of what you pay your employees. it's an old business accounting trick that makes you seem like you are really in the upper echelon in salary scale when at best you are average or below when enticing current/future employees. I can not due the math as I do not recall what Lovie's original deal was, but I would like to see you show some math that proves he was, at the end of the day as you say, paid average or below average. While his initial deal was not huge, his later deal made him the top paid HC in the NFL. Even if you add up all the dollars and divide by years, I bet he still ends up w/ a solid and above average per year salary.

Sorry, but there is (IMHO) a difference between being cheap and doing things that make business sense, even if it doesn't make fans happy. I think more than a few owners are cutting back right now when it comes to finances. Look at the amount of turnover w/ coaches and staff the last two year, and then look at this year. Very minimal. More teams than just we choose to stick w/ what they have, even if they were not thrilled, due to finances. Further, just wait for FA. While you may have a few teams that buck the trend, I bet most teams hold back on spending big bucks. Its one thing to be cheap. Its another to hold back on spending huge sums of money when in a situation as teams find themselves this year.

I don't think McGinnis was low-balled. At least that isn't he version I recall. As I recall, he was ticked off that we announced we had hired him before he had even said yes.

I am pretty sure Kreutz will be playing this year the final year of his contract. He will be an UFA after the 2010 season.

Wouldn't need to be Tyson in his heyday. Did you see the shot Tyson doled out in The Hangover?

My bad. Honestly, I read the post too quickly and thought you were actually suggesting we sign Warner as a FA QB. Just call it end of work day stupidity. I do wonder how great of a QB coach hire he would be though. There seemed to be more animosity between he and Eli in Ny than a situation of a veteran helping a young QB. And in Az, I have no heard many stories of his going out of his way to help or work w/ Leinart. Sure, it may be different as he is a player right now, but I also think a player who one day will be a coach is also the sort of player who is sort of a coach during his playing days.

I still think we are going to do nothing before we have an opportunity to interview the WR coach from Indy. If that is who we really want, dragging our feet so long would make sense. He is maybe the only guy out there who we could hire and honestly say we got our guy, as we could not reach out to him until after the SB. While I don't really see why he would be so great, I bet Dungy gave a raving review of him and you know how much Dungy's word carries w/ Lovie.

Even if Warner retires, I believe Az would still hold his rights for 2010, as he should still be under contract for that year. If that were not the case, you would see players "retiring" all the time just to sign w/ another team.

We will never know, but I wonder if things would have been different if not for the CBA issues. If there was not the potential of a work stoppage, might the owners simply have eaten Lovie's deal and made the move today. As hard as it is for so many to believe our owners would ever eat that sort of coin, I honestly believe the CBA issues were a huge factor. Not only would they have eaten Lovie's $11m, and then had to pay Cowher and his staff considerably more, but they would also face the potential of lost revenue in 2011. That means they would be paying two coaches to do nothing that year.

I disagee with is the standard. I don't recall many coaches over walking away disgusted at our offers. At the same time, the story doesn't shock me. Not nearly so much due the the rep of our owners, but due to the situation we are in. If another coach would accept a one year deal, I would bet we would pay well for that one year. Unfortunately, no one is going to join the team for a one year deal. That puts ownership in a position of having to offer a deal w/ the expectation not having that coach on the payroll in a year. If Lovie is gone a year from now, then they are all fired, and that means the new coach is fired too. Did anyone really think these guys were going to be offered sizable contacts w/ such a high level of expectation of dead money down the road? We all saw it coming, but keeping Lovie on staff has truly crippled this team. No one wants to join the team under such circumstances.

Yea, that will be an interesting press conference. When I read articles about Buffalo hiring Gailey, most are positive in terms of who they hired, but negative in how they went about the process. As they first tried, and failed, to get numerous other coaching candidates or higher rep, it provided the image of Gailey being a 4th or 5th choice. Bad enough when you are considered a team's 2nd choice, much less much lower. For us, whoever we get for OC and DC is likely to be considered far less than what we had in mind as we have been spurned by so many.

A) While I understand your side of the argument, I would suggest that our recent efforts show security has played a factor. In fact, both Bates and Fewell has each specifically mentioned security as an issue in their decision. I also think our time line is absolutely an issue at play here. Zampese had a very specific window set by the team or one week. We were not looking to make a quick decision, so the team closed the door. Similar, I think time was the biggest key factor in our not getting Hue Jackson was time. Oakland had a firm offer on the table. We had only set up an interview w/ no time table on when we would make a decision. Can't blame a guy w/ going for the firm offer. I think we entered the process already in a less than great situation due to the unstable environment, but the process we have taken has even further crippled our search.

i am sure this is what you were referring to but just to clarify a bit of history: plank's career lasted from 1975 through 1982 so not involved realistically with the superbowl team. a fair to good team during his era but not great. you are correct though that he was a buddy ryan coached player and was one of the most feared hard hitting safeties in the entire nfl during the 70's. Did I say he was part of the SB team? Maybe I did, but yes, I know better. He did play under Ryan though, and it was more being part of that system I was talking about. this was doug plank during his career... super hard hitting safety who led with his helmet a lot and played like a madman. he would literally try to run through a player and put a hurt on them. plank hit like a ton of bricks but did not wrap up the player or was a very good tackler. they usually fell over at impact but if not they went by him and this is where gary fencik came in as a perfect compliment to plank. fencik was one of the best open field tacklers (and blitzers also) i have ever seen play. if plank didn't knock em down fencik would make the sure tackle. it was a fantastic combo to watch. What I loved the most about the duo was the high/low aspect. Fencik would go low, wrapping up for the sure tackle. At the same time, Plank came in high and deliverd a jarring blow. As hard as Plank's hits were, they were even more effective by the fact the ball carriers legs were held in position by Fencik. A tackle by either would have been bad enough for the ball carrier, but how often these two seemed to hit carriers at the same time was simply scary. as far as rivera and buddy ryan... rivera was a rookie in '85. buddy had not much use for rookies and if i remember right rivera hated buddy ryan and mentioned this later in his career and coaching life. how much he learned about coaching from buddy in that one season i don't know but it was a pretty short time and if he did learn a lot ryan must have really put a lasting impression on him. To me, the bigger key was who he played w/. As genius as Buddy was, I have always given top credit to Singletary. Even Ryan used to say that if it were not for Singletary, that defense likely would not have been so effective. Your right that Rivera does not often give Buddy a ton of credit for his development, but I have often heard him talk about how Singletary was a teacher, and who he learned so much from. most of rivera's career came under tobin who was maybe the luckiest knucklehead to ever fall into a good thing and not completely destroy it (although he tried). he will always be fondly remembered by me for trying to take an attack defense that was the best in the nfl and turn them into a "read and react" defense. wat an idiot. Luckiest coach to me is Barry Switzer, who took over a SB champion team in Dallas. His first year w/ the team, he basically sat back, changed little to nothing, and earned a SB ring. Under Switzer, Dallas won a SB the first year, but the team went downhill from there. He lucked into a vastly talented group year one, but showed his true ability thereafter. No real argument about Tobin though. I have often heard players talk about how he so changed the mind set of one of the most feared defenses ever. Frankly, it is sort of why I have never liked Lovie or his defense. There simply is not enough attack in it. Even in our SB year, I personally felt that Rivera tried to make it a more attacking D, while Lovie preferred the more bend/don't break style hoping for turnovers. I will never forget the AZ game when, then rookie Matt Lienart, just lit up our D in the first half as we played off the LOS and expected the rook to make mistakes. Instead, Matty shredded our group. After halftime, I saw a very different D. WRs were pressed at the LOS, and we seemed to blitz on every down. Suddenly, Leinart was under a constant rush and their RB was stuffed at the LOS, if not in the backfield. I have always felt that game an example of the two different styles of our HC (1st half) and DC (2nd half). Lovie wanted us to play back and try for turnovers. Rivera more had the mentality from Remember the Titans, when the coach said he didn't want them to gain a single yard.

Okay, I understand. You want an experienced NFL coach. Question, and this is not really so much specifically about Plank. Do you need to have a NFL experienced defensive coordinator, or are you open to promoting a position coach. I know Plank was not even fully a position coach. As I said, this question is not about Plank. Just curious what your parameters are? For me, I am a little more flexible for our defensive coordinator position. One the defensive side, we have a defensive background head coach, and whose system we will run. We also have loads of experience at DB, LB and DL coaches, w/ two of those men having held DC and HC positions. So, w/ so much experience on the defensive staff, not to mention the DC will be running the HC's scheme, I am not as adamant about having to have a new DC with loads of experience. Offense is another matter. We have an experienced OL coach. We kept our WR coach, but he has never been higher than WR coach in the NFL, and came to us from college. And it isn't like the new OC will get much help from the HC. We need an OC with prior playcalling experience. I would take a college level OC (major program) over an NFL position coach w/o playcalling experience, but even that is not my preference. We need someone who has (a) developed game plans and ( been a game day playcaller, and done this at the NFL. Further, this coach's past experience should have proved a fair level of success.