CHICAGO — In the week since firing general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy, Chicago Bears Chairman George McCaskey has been inching his way through an interview schedule of more than two dozen candidates to replace them.
As the five-person Bears search committee narrows its choices, it also will be selling what the franchise has to offer the next GM and coach. Six other teams are looking for a coach, and three others are trying to find a GM.
So what exactly is the appeal of the Bears jobs, and what is the downside to what the next GM and coach will inherit?
Here are four key categories to consider: the quarterback, the rest of the roster, the assets and the intangibles.
The quarterback
What the Bears have at quarterback is open to interpretation after Justin Fields’ rocky rookie season, in which he completed 58.9% of his passes for 1,870 yards with seven touchdowns, 10 interceptions and a 73.2 passer rating. He was sacked 36 times, fumbled 12 times and rushed for 420 yards and two touchdowns.
A simple look at Fields’ stats in 10 starts isn’t encouraging, but it also doesn’t take into account a host of outside circumstances that affected his play.
Fields didn’t take reps with the starters in training camp, a hindrance when he was pushed into his first start in Week 3 because of Andy Dalton’s knee injury. Offensive line issues and questionable game plans put Fields in bad positions in some of his starts. The receiving corps was thin, especially as Allen Robinson underperformed and sat out with health issues. And Fields’ development was disrupted late in the year by injuries and COVID-19.
Fields’ stats also don’t fully show the flashes of talent displayed against the San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers or the competitiveness with which Bears coaches said he operated.
He showed enough that there are bound to be coaches and GMs who think the right guidance can turn him into a star. Whether those people are also the Bears’ top candidates remains to be seen.
In his news conference last week, McCaskey was determined to leave the qualifications for the Bears’ vacant positions as open-ended as possible, and that included declining to say whether candidates with reservations about Fields would be disqualified.
“We will be very interested to hear from both general manager and head coach candidates what their plan is to get the most out of the quarterback position for us,” McCaskey said.
Still, it would seem to make sense that the Bears’ next leaders have faith in what they can do with Fields.
The roster
Along with Fields, the Bears have a core of good, young players returning.
Wide receiver Darnell Mooney topped 1,000 receiving yards in his second season and has the work ethic to make coaches believe he’s on the rise.
Cornerback Jaylon Johnson is a key defensive piece after he had an interception, nine passes defended, a forced fumble and 46 tackles in his second season.
Running back David Montgomery missed four games with a knee injury but still rushed for 849 yards and seven touchdowns and had 42 catches for 301 yards in his third season. Rookie running back Khalil Herbert filled in nicely while Montgomery was out. And second-year tight end Cole Kmet still has development ahead but took a step forward with 60 catches for 612 yards.
The Bears also return some fierce veterans on defense, starting with outside linebackers Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn and inside linebacker Roquan Smith. Mack missed 10 games with a foot injury this season, but Quinn and Smith were named second-team All-Pro.
However, the Bears also have some massive holes to fill and questions to address.
On offense, wide receiver is the most pressing position with Robinson likely to head into free agency after playing on the franchise tag this season and Pro Bowl returner/receiver Jakeem Grant, Marquise Goodwin and Damiere Byrd also set to be free agents. Kmet will be the only tight end under contract at the start of the new league year.
The Bears have questions on the offensive line with veteran tackles Jason Peters and Germain Ifedi and guard James Daniels becoming free agents. They must decide whether 2021 draft picks Teven Jenkins and Larry Borom are the answers at either tackle spot or if they need to add other options.
On defense, starting linemen Akiem Hicks and Bilal Nichols, safety Tashaun Gipson and inside linebacker Alec Ogletree are set to be free agents, and the Bears need to consider who they want at outside corner and nickel after some performance issues there this season.
Overall, there’s a lot of work to be done on the roster. A new GM will be able to operate without the loyalty Pace might have felt to some of the players he drafted and signed, and that could make for some interesting decisions in the months to come.
The assets
One of the sacrifices Pace made to acquire Fields at No. 11 in the 2021 draft was trading this year’s first- and fourth-round picks to the New York Giants.
That leaves the Bears with picks in Rounds 2, 3, 5 and 6. They have an extra fifth-round selection they received when they traded wide receiver Anthony Miller and their seventh-round pick to the Houston Texans.
In terms of their financial situation, the Bears are in the top half of the league in salary-cap space, with the league cap expected to be $208.2 million.
According to spotrac.com, the Bears are expected to have about $34.6 million in cap space when the new league year begins, which ranks 13th in the NFL. And there is of course room to maneuver with cuts and contract restructuring.
With all of the aforementioned holes to fill, the Bears could run through their cap space quickly. However, if Fields, Jenkins and/or Borom become the players Pace envisioned, that helps the Bears to have young starters on rookie contracts at those typically pricey positions.
The intangibles
For all of the talk about dysfunction at Halas Hall over the last decade — and there has been plenty from the standpoint of how the franchise is run from the top, starting with McCaskey — there are also some quirks to the GM and coach jobs that could make them more appealing.
For one, the new GM will report directly to McCaskey, who goes out of his way to remind everyone he is “just a fan” and “not a football evaluator.” While that approach is questionable from an outside perspective, it could be appealing to an executive who values freedom in decision-making.
The new hires also will be shown a recently renovated and expanded Halas Hall. Pace was a driving force in the upgrade to the facilities, and the added space has been useful during COVID-19 and allowed the team to host training camp in Lake Forest.
And then there’s the Chicago market, which boasts a fan base that is both passionate and starved for success considering its team has one playoff victory in 15 years.
Nagy — whose job was the subject of fan and media speculation for more than a year — surely can attest to the difficulties of fielding even a mediocre team in such an environment. But a coach and GM need look back only four years to the 2018 season to see what a fired-up Bears fan base looks like.
And that team didn’t even win a playoff game. Imagine the possibilities.
