The time is now. McCaskey must do an honest evaluation and establish long-term goals

[soulman]

BEARS
The time is now
McCaskey must do an honest evaluation and establish long-term goals

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune Bears coach Matt Nagy looks at the video board during a preseason game against the Dolphins at Soldier Field. John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune

Whether he realizes it or not, Bears Chairman George McCaskey has been given an order for the 2021 season.

For months now, an edgy and disgruntled fan base has expressed its worry about the franchise’s long-term direction, pleading for McCaskey to become more honest with his evaluations, more harsh with his criticism and less Pollyannaish with his outlook for the future.

Sure, much of that angst was shoved into a closet in late April when the Bears cashed a draft-weekend lottery ticket, trading up in the first round to select Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields. That move — serendipitous, stirring and significant — generated a welcome surge of euphoria. Those vibes lasted deep into training camp.

But now, in a remarkable twist, the Bears seem to have lost a sizable chunk of that positive energy from the outside world. Without
having played a meaningful game.

Go figure.

The belief in Fields, who will start his career in a backup role, hasn’t dissipated. To fans, coaches and players alike, the rookie’s performance through training camp and in three preseason games only strengthened the belief that he has all the talent, poise and drive to be a damn good starting quarterback in the NFL for a long time.

That obviously is a promising step forward at the most important position in the sport. Yet as the Bears head for a challenging opener against the Rams on Sunday night, the Fields excitement suddenly has been displaced by a familiar sense of angst.

Follow the staircase upward.

Many fans worry that the team’s plan for Andy Dalton to steer the offense deep into the regular season while Fields develops behind the scenes is misguided and impractical.

They are worried coach Matt Nagy might never make good on a years long promise to establish an identity for his offense while transforming the Bears into one of the more productive and entertaining attacks in the NFL.

They are worried the current roster general manager Ryan Pace has constructed is too old and that future efforts at improvement will be constricted by a troublesome salary-cap situation.

They are worried that team President and CEO Ted Phillips doesn’t have enough football acumen or focus on on-field happenings to truly conduct a sophisticated evaluation of his GM.

And they are worried that McCaskey can’t see the big picture clearly, too respectful of his subordinates and too trusting in them to demand accountability or enact true change when failures occur and expectations aren’t met.

That’s why this indirect edict has been floating out there, this push for McCaskey to express a vision for 2021 and beyond, to establish clear-cut goals. Heading into the opener, it’s only sensible for the man at the top to lay out unambiguous expectations so that a passionate fan base at least feels it has a clue about where the bar is being set.

McCaskey, of course, hasn’t met with the media since an awkward January Zoom news conference that seemed to confirm for many in the outside world that the Bears remain as directionless and oblivious as ever.

To many around the league, the Bears seem either incapable of recognizing mediocrity or unwilling to do anything about it when they have it identified.
Since 2000, the franchise has cycled through five coaches, four general managers and 23 starting quarterbacks. The Bears have had a .491 winning percentage during that span. And their three playoff victories over the last 21 seasons top only the Washington Football Team, Miami Dolphins, Cincinnati Bengals, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions.

Pedestrian at best, right?

And while Fields’ arrival might be a catalyst to change those fortunes, he won’t create landmark success instantly.

That’s why McCaskey must express clarity in what he’s looking for out of this season and communicate it to the masses.

What exactly must Pace and Nagy accomplish to retain belief from above?

At what point does Phillips’ oversight of this consistent mediocrity need to be questioned more?

What should these 2021 Bears be hoping to achieve?

To those questions, we still only have McCaskey’s answers from mid-January.

“We need to see improvement,” he said then. “We need to see progress.”

But what does that really mean? What are the benchmarks for judging improvement and progress? What achievements will indicate to the biggest decision-maker at Halas Hall that the franchise is heading in the right direction?

This was McCaskey in January: “All four of us will know whether there’s been sufficient improvement or sufficient progress to continue past 2021.”

Added Phillips: “We’re going to know whether we’re heading in the right direction or not. That’s how we feel about it.”

See where this gets so tricky? This is where the target becomes too blurry to make out an actual bull’s-eye.

With McCaskey’s next Q-and-A session with the media still stamped as “TBD,” it seems imperative to press Pace and Nagy on how they’ll define progress and improvement for 2021.

The general manager’s response remains direct.

“To me,” Pace said last week, “it all goes back to winning football games. And getting in the playoffs. And then winning once we’re in the playoffs.”

Pace is headed into his seventh season with the Bears owning a 42-54 regular-season record during his tenure. They have yet to win a playoff game.

Still, credit him for at least setting an ambitious target for 2021, especially with a team widely believed to hover around .500 for the next four-plus months.

As for Nagy, when he was asked Monday how he would define progress in 2021, he stressed a need to show consistent and mostly uninterrupted growth. That will be particularly critical on offense.

Said Nagy: “You want to be able to say, ‘Hey, as an offense, identify-wise we want to grow. And by Week 4 or 5 or 6, you want to feel like you know what you have.

“More so, as a team in general, you want to feel like, hey, we’re playing complementary football — offense, defense, special teams. That’s probably my biggest thing. It’s understanding, ‘Let’s get better every week and let’s play complementary football.’ ”

Noted.

In other words, a standout defense can’t be held back yet again by an offense that so consistently fails to carry its share of the load. Measure this team and the men who lead it accordingly.

To be crystal clear, Bears brass set a bar for the 2020 season too. In the days after the team’s maddening 2019 season ended, Phillips said he “absolutely” expected the Bears to be championship contenders in 2020.

“We should be able to turn it around,” he insisted.

Eight months later, during Week 1 of that potential turnaround season, McCaskey stressed he was eager to see whether the 2020 Bears would be more like the 2018 team that won 12 games and a division title or more like the 2019 team that sputtered to 8-8.

The Bears followed with another 8-8 season, backed into the playoffs as the NFC’s No. 7 seed and were quickly removed from the postseason party the way a housefly is smushed with a rolled-up newspaper. Almost nothing about 2020 felt like 2018.

Yet when McCaskey’s bar wasn’t cleared, there were few ramifications. Little of significance was done.

McCaskey struggled to explain why there were few major consequences for the team’s continued struggles.

When he was asked directly what he saw within last season that indicated the Bears were making meaningful progress toward winning a championship, he quickly noted how the team landed receiver Darnell Mooney in the fifth round of the draft.

“We need to keep doing more of that,” McCaskey said.

He also emphasized that there was minimal drama or dysfunction during the Bears’ excruciating 55-day stretch between victories last fall.

“Usually when you go through a losing streak like that, people start pointing fingers, people start casting blame,” McCaskey said. “That just didn’t happen with our team.”

We don’t need to relive that entire January fiasco again. But that’s why it seems important for McCaskey to refresh his outlook, to communicate with Bears fans about how the team is progressing toward a future where success can be sustained.

Still, in a somewhat uncomfortable way, perhaps this season shouldn’t necessarily be about a victory total or playoff success. Once Pace and Nagy were given the green light to take another big swing at fixing the quarterback position, that responsibility should have come with substantial freedom to see their plan through.

Fields’ arrival has been a big deal, a gift, really. Now it’s up to the Bears to do something with it. And in the grand scheme 2021 should be defined largely by how the rookie quarterback’s development progresses.

If the Bears roll into January with clear evidence that Fields is every bit as good as everyone believes he can be, then should it really matter if the Bears win 10 games and slide back into the playoffs or lose 10 and are dropped from the NFC’s “In the Hunt” graphics in early January?

Still, the Bears need to have a sharp understanding of what this season is really about. Much of that starts with how McCaskey views everything from above.
For right now, though, the outside world doesn’t know what that outlook is.

[Heinz D.]

Why would Spurious George start doing all that stuff NOW?

I mean, he's blown off all sorts of things for quite a while...and he still has a franchise, right? 

And isn't that all that really matters? 

[Heinz D.]

2 hours ago, soulman said:

If the Bears roll into January with clear evidence that Fields is every bit as good as everyone believes he can be, then should it really matter if the Bears win 10 games and slide back into the playoffs or lose 10 and are dropped from the NFC’s “In the Hunt” graphics in early January?

That SHOULD come with the caveat that attention will be payed as to just how the team, especially its young players, are actually playing. And if Nagy is putting everybody into positions to win games...but they're simply coming up short. 

But who the hell knows if ownership will even pay attention to ANYTHING. This is probably a mulligan season for Pace and Nagy. And by gawd is that NOT the way to run a franchise...

[soulman]

Nagy has already had his Mulligan and Pace has messed up his cap so badly he's turned one of the best secondaries into one of the worst.  No one gets any more Mulligans.

 

[Heinz D.]

20 hours ago, soulman said:

Nagy has already had his Mulligan and Pace has messed up his cap so badly he's turned one of the best secondaries into one of the worst.  No one gets any more Mulligans.

 

No one SHOULD get any more mulligans. But we're not talking about reasonable, knowledgeable people here. 

Pace and Nagy should have already been fired. Pretty much any other franchise in the league would have done that. So, we're clearly talking about incompetent decision makers at the top. It's unlikely, but not out of the question, that the Bears could go 7-10 and Pace and Nagy get five year extensions. 

[soulman]

5 hours ago, Heinz D. said:

No one SHOULD get any more mulligans. But we're not talking about reasonable, knowledgeable people here. 

Pace and Nagy should have already been fired. Pretty much any other franchise in the league would have done that. So, we're clearly talking about incompetent decision makers at the top. It's unlikely, but not out of the question, that the Bears could go 7-10 and Pace and Nagy get five year extensions. 

GMcC walks the parking lot and grounds every game.  Maybe it's time Bears fans accosted him with their feelings and complaints and began to force the issue.  I truly believe GMcC wants to win one more big one for Granny Bear but counter opposed to that is ol' "Bean Counter" Ted who'll quickly inform him that losing isn't costing them any money.   Fans still show up and spend their money so let's not make it even worse like we did before.

I don't live in Chicago so this is addressed to those who do.  You wanna make a difference in the thinking of GMcC and Teddy Bears?  Stop showing up at games paying for parking and concessions.  Stop buying Bears merchandise.  Yes, put that Justin Fields jersey on hold.  When a restaurant serves lousy food people stop eating there.  When a supermarket fail to hire enough checkers and checkout lines are ten deep people shop elsewhere.  If your Chevy or Ford keep breaking down buy a Toyota or a Honda next time.  As long as you all keep feeding the McCaskey "kitty" all you're likely to get is more of the same.  Stop being masochists and do something besides complain on a forum.

Way back when Kyle Orton was playing QB here in Denver and Tebow had been drafted when the AFCW found out Orton is who he is and had zero deep ball accuracy they just took away his short stuff and the Broncos began losing every game.  Naturally the Bronco Faithful called for Tebow and after a couple of games when they refused to start him fans began to stay home by the thousands.  Tens of thousands really.  Guess who got the starting QB job as soon as that happened a couple of time?  So vote with your wallets.  Let GMcC know you are God damn displeased.

Two lines come to mind here.  One is that line Eddie Murphy had in Trading Places where he said he figured the best way to get even and hurt rich people was to make them poor.  The other is an old saying I've used for 50 years.  When you've got 'em by the balls their hearts and mind will follow and the McCaskey wallet is always located in the front pocket adjacent to the balls.  Let SF begin to look like the JAX stadium has for some of their home games and you'll get the attention of Teddy Bears and GMcC very quickly.....embarrass them.  They hate that.

[Madmike90]

As much as George didn't want to admit it I still wonder had it not been for the revenue lost with an empty stadium in a pandemic if Pace & Nagy would still have their jobs...everything else George said says that they should have been gone this offseason...if he settles for another 9-8 8-9 season then we know he is full of it.

[soulman]

The key point made in this article is that GMcC has steadfastly refused to set specific goals for his GM, his HC, and the team in general.

Telling the fans who spend the money to support your business that "you and you alone" will decide what's good enough is pure arrogance and it should be seen and treated that way.  Until Bears fans vote with their wallets things at Halas Hall won't change.  Teddy Bears will still be the football incompetent CEO and Pace and Nagy will still be collaborating on what to try next to produce different results.

I'm beginning to feel the ingrained mediocrity runs so deep that it will never be fixed as long as that trio is running the team.  Any owner whose been as willing as the McCaskey's have been to accept this should also be questioned.  The time for all of the whining and trite excuses is over.  It's been 7 years since a change at the top was made and promises have not been kept.  We're still sub .500 over that period of time.

Prior to 2021 I've always been willing to give Ryan Pace just a little more leeway than he's probably earned simply because as a rookie GM he got off to a very bad start with a very bad coaching hire forced upon him.  But even if I wipe that out the first three seasons under Nagy have been far worse than expected.  Even the 2018 team was probably no better than 8-8 talent wise but surprised teams with turnovers and trick plays to win.

If there is no discernible progress in terms of a more productive offense and more wins 2021 needs to be the end of the line for this bunch.  JMHO