DABEARSDABOMB

So I wonder if Wolf/Brown are actually people you are looking to meet with now - but really getting insights for potential for new GM to bring as Asst GM. Schoen apparently had a stellar interview with Giants yesterday and would have comfort in Schoen/Daboll pairing. If I'm going Colts - Dodds is really the name I like. Less intrigued with the pair there, but probably cause I just don't know Eberflus enough.

They said the coaching crop is meh, but the front office crop is super deep and barely any teams hunting for GM's. Bears have a lot of great candidates and quite frankly i still say they might be able to poach a GM and add to their organizational depth by grabbing someone else. I still think Bears goal should be to pluck someone who can get promoted in a few years and have someone else within the org who can move up - create depth so McCaskey never has to really make this type of hire again.

Your list is awesome - I threw it into the original post. I still lean towards Daboll, Bowles and Quinn as my 3 favorite candidates (if they don't go Harbaugh). Josh McDaniels name isn't on here, but there are rumors Bears are interested but McDaniels won't meet with teams until after Pats are out of playoffs. I actually wonder if Pederson might be in play for an OC role. Especially if Bears hire a defensive HC.

I figure they are getting that independent assessment from Polian and this is just more data (as I believe some of these get recorded in remote setting) that this gives more info for new GM too. I also believe the Bears end up hiring more than a GM as part of this. With the wide net cast my guess is we see the new GM poach someone else from these interviews.

Champ Kelly and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah interviewing today. Ireland is apparently confirmed for tomorrow. Kelly is a new name on the list (in-house - but whether they find him serious or not - it is very much worth interviewing him to give a clearly perspective on his vision for the team and I'm really curious what Polian's views are out of that meeting in particular).

I am not too worried about that - it is a good point though but Bears scouting was built up a lot in past couple years and Paces drafts were pretty solid last 2 years. Pace issue was how Willy nilly he was with draft capital and how ineffective he was at managing cap and roster.

Right now I am quite happy with the starting point. They seem to have a plan to cast a wide net - have circled all the good candidates and should get pretty good divergent thought from the group and get really good insights on their personal and potential ideas out there. From there they can narrow the list and start to accelerate the search but the plan so far seems to be going pretty good. Beyond that - there aren’t a lot of teams hiring a GM, so time really doesn’t hurt them on that front. Quite frankly I am hoping the Bears might hire two of their GM candidates - one for GM and one for Asst (or a 2nd asst to pair with Kelly). Use this to strengthen quality of front office as a whole. On HC front - it seems like no one will move that quickly with the candidates focused on the playoffs at this point (or at least the bulk of them). That might change but if most of the teams win (I think most of bears candidates in playoffs are favored) - that pushes real movement in coaches out basically 10 days from now when they really get involved - which gives a lot of time for Bears to handle GM search and do their remote zooms and get ducks in a row for the final push (if it isn’t Harbaugh).

Bears met with Glenn Cook today. So one GM and one Coach that are confirmed to have met with the team at this point.

Bears had initial interview with Pederson today.

Ron Wolf's son, Elliot Wolf is now on the GM list. I believe Omar Khan, who was one of the two in the running to take over in Pittsburgh (but was informed he won't get the gig) is also I think on the list. Wolf is still extremely young but spent a lot of time in Green Bay before moving to Cleveland and now spending past 2 seasons in New England (where I believe he is the Asst GM).

I like Frazier the person - but his defenses have pretty much been mediocre his entire career. I do think he would connect well with the players and likely hire very good coordinators. THan again - Lovie never really had great defenses, I think it was more his leadership traits and ability to hold people to a standard that worked in his favor to be a successful head coach for as long as he was. Heck - he probably would still be coaching if he didn't end up getting too much power (he just wasn't a great personel guy).

I like what I've read about Ed Dobbs. Dude has that fire and passion and seems to have a relentless expectation / standard for greatness. He backs the talk up with an impressive resume, doing a nice job with Colts prior to a very successful tenure building up the Seahawks. He's very high on my list (not that it matters).

Harbaugh's name will never show up on the list until after. Bears don't have a tracker that they put up. None of us will know of the Harbaugh stuff until after and it will all be rumor. Either way - one thing I know for sure - Harbaugh will either get a contract extension and pay raise at Michigan because of this or he's getting an NFL job.

They don't announce it - the agents of the coaches do and they leak it to media reporters. This isn't anything odd - every single team has this happen. And just like that - some very good teams have HC's who have final say and roster control and other real good teams are structured the other way. There is no right way to do it in this regard (no data shows one works better than the other at this point in the NFL). Similarly - on everyone clammoring for a president - the president is just another way of saying GM depending on the org. Tribune and other media outlets had some real good articles on it about a week or two ago talking about the different structures, but reality is more in how you pay your people and how many people in the building. One of the biggest changes under Pace was the Bears literally trippled the amount of front office people they had (greatly increasing their resources to be much more in-line with how more modern orgs are structured vs. historical org that was very small).

I don't know anyone better he could listen to. He has ran 3 orgs which successfully made it to the Superbowl (Bills, Panthers, and Colts). I think anyone complaining about Polian being involved is nitpicking (but is entitled to that opinion). Either way - I fully expect Bears are going to swing big at Harbaugh. Only question is will they swing big enough and will he actually be interested in moving over.

By the way - Brian Daboll's Bills unit has ranked the following over past 2 years. This included a stretch this year where they struggled and you wondered, did the league catch up to them (and maybe they did). But he showed me real moxy in terms of how the offense morphed in 2nd half of the year and adjusted and came out of it a stronger unit. This is an offense that outscoured the Chiefs each of the last 2 years and he obviously gets a ton of credit for developing a QB in Allen (quite frankly Fields skill set and limitations are somewhat similar to Allen - with exception that Fields didn't have the same accuracy issues Allen had to overcome). 21-22: #5 in the league in yards/game and #3 in the league in points/game. 20-21: #2 in points/game

These are requests - this doesn't mean they will actually interview everyone. But do you want a GM to get hired, than you make formal requests and have nothing scheduled and so you have to get on the calendar with guys who already have 5 or 6 interviews lined up? Or would you rather be hired as the GM - look at the list knowing everything is lined up and now he just has to prioritize, and add or remove names from the list, but at least has a leg up. If it were me - I would much prefer having a good starting point knowing I could hit the ground running than having to start from scratch. Might save a few days in the process. It would be different to me if George is meeting with all of the people on this list without having a GM. That would not make sense to me. Reality is - how you do this will differ. You can hire the HC first or the GM first. There are certain HC's that to get them, they will need to be the first hire. For example - Harbaugh is not coming here without having a hand picked GM. He isn't going to get Balked' again. Flores is probably in that same boat - where he isn't coming to work for a GM - he is the main hire and will have control and hand pick his GM.

Bears request permission to interview Brian Flores, former Dolphins coach. Good article on his dismissal from the team. Really went back to a power struggle between him and GM (which he evidently lost). And the below article isn't overly flattering of Flores. His results are good - but he went through multiple DC's and OC's in each year he was there. I like fact that he holds people to a high standard - but at same time - I imagine he rubs a ton of people wrong way and that is the problem with the BB style. It is hard to be BB when you don't have the cred he has (he has ring(s) to his name and thus people will listen). https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/barry-jackson/article256841207.html

I think with almost all of the candidates, they can't actually interview them until next week (and even than I don't know if that is the case or not). So this is more I think getting the plumbing set-up (maybe there are certain candidates they want to interview first because they would want to pick the GM (so inverse) so that could be by design. But my gut was this was more of a - we are going to interview GM's fast and try to get that done soon, but in meantime, lets get a pipeline of candidates lined up so that when the GM comes in, he can validate/add names, but know that at least 80% of the right names are on there and the new GM can operate with the right speed from there. If instead the new GM is going to be held to that list - yeah - that would be a disaster, but my presumption is that will not be the case. Fact that they are interviewing a lot of experienced GM's would also imply to me that they intend to hand the reigns over to that experienced individual.

Bears request permission to interview Colts Asst GM/VP of Player Personell - Ed Dobbs. 2nd Colts GM request (to go along with 2 Browns GM requests). Prior to working with Ballard (since 2017) - he spent 10 years with Seahawks and played a crucial role building up their super bowl squad. Very strong resume.

Bears request permission to interview Colts DC Matt Eberflus. I don't know much about him - but Colts D has been outstanding for last few years. He is also no the Jags interview list.

Decent article on one of the Browns candidates Kwesi Adofo Mensah. He has a different backgrond than many GM's today, but so does Mickey Loomis (Saints) and Howie Roseman (Eagles). It all depends on how you structure your front office. https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/new-vp-of-football-ops-kwesi-adofo-mensah-knows-what-it-takes-to-win-ready-to-wo

If there is anything the annual coaching carousel will tell me - most of all of these names will inevitably fail. Sometimes it may not have anything to do with them, it could be they have a bad roster, face uphill battles from injuries, etc. I do think in the short windows these coaches have - the reality is - there is more than just their individual capabilities that ultimately decide whether they are successful or not (it is a tough life - being an NFL HC). But in general - there aren't a lot of people on the list who I would shake my head at if they got hired. Reality is - George was right on one thing, no one is going to trust that they got it right until you see real production out on the field. W/L's; Progression from Justin Fields (or whomever the QB is), Development of young players, etc.

Updated master list at the top too. Pretty comprehensive list - interested to see whether they reach out to McDaniels. I would reach out to him, if for no other reason, than to get his views on his vision and what he would do, how he would design things around Fields (or would he NOT design things around him, etc).

Yeah - He was evidently pretty key in those drafts picks - supposedly has a very good eye for oline talent. In general - Colts have drafted really well. Bears also officially request permission to interview Rick Smith (former Texans GM) and Jeff Ireland (Saints Asst GM and former Dolphins GM; Plus past jobs with Cowboys). Pretty happy with the list of names I'm seeing thus far. One other item to point out - many front office people do not have agents (they rep themselves) and usually it is agents that leak these requests, so there are likely other candidates whose names just haven't popped out.