The Bears have failed to develop first-time NFL head coaches; should they stop trying?
Hiring a head coach in the NFL is hard enough. Projecting how an assistant will do as a head coach is even harder. Yet that’s how the Bears have operated for almost the entirety of their 105-year history.
The Bears have hired two head coaches who had done the job before — John Fox in 2015 and Paddy Driscoll in 1956. Driscoll’s experience came as a player-coach for the Chicago Cardinals from 1920-22.
The other 16 people the Bears have hired as head coach — including interim Thomas Brown — had never held the position before in the NFL. Matt Eberflus had never been a head coach at any level — high school, college or pro — when the Bears hired him. Neither had Matt Nagy. Or Lovie Smith. Or Dick Jauron. Or Dave Wannstedt.
And the Bears really want to do this again?
The Bears are expected to conduct virtual interviews with Lions coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn — who have never been head coaches — by the end of Saturday. They’ll want to know what safeguards each man has in place to navigate a new position.
“Good coaches come from different places, different backgrounds,” general manager Ryan Poles said Tuesday. “How are you supplementing your blind spots, your voids? If you are a first-time head coach what can we put in place for you to help support you? What do the coordinators look like? Are they former head coaches? Do you have an advisor who was a head coach who is at your right side to pick up some of the blind spot? To say, ‘You might want to take care of this. This could turn into something later.’ Or, ‘I think you might be missing here.’ How are you supporting some of those blind spots if you are a first-time head coach?”
That makes for a good sound bite. Poles, though, didn’t make sure Eberflus put those safeguards in place in 2022. When he was hired, he assembled a coaching staff without a single former NFL head coach on it.
Hiring someone who’s been a NFL head coach, then, seems like the wiser path. Pete Carroll, who’s expected to interview Thursday, has won a Super Bowl and a NCAA championship. Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy won one with the Packers. Mike Vrabel, who interviewed with the Bears on Wednesday, went to five playoff games with the Titans. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury and Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith have all been NFL head coaches.
“If you have been a head coach before, yes, there is a lot of value,” Poles said. “Some of the new things, you’ve already experienced those. You’ve been around it and you have the blueprint on how to counter things when they go away from you. Or when you have success how do you make sure everyone stays humble and continues to work and get better.”
Turning a hotshot assistant coach into a successful head coach takes projection. That requires a sharp scouting eye and a franchise stable enough to help the coach get where he needs to go. It takes a willingness to let him learn on the job.
That worked for George Halas, Mike Ditka and Smith — and no one else in Bears history.
“If you’re really good at sales, you become the manager,” tight end Cole Kmet said last week. “But like being a salesman, it’s not the same job as the manager. … With how the league works, usually if you’re a good play-caller on one side or the other you get your opportunity of becoming a head coach, but the responsibilities of the head coach are just so vastly different than being a play-caller. There are aspects of having to talk to the whole team, not just to one side of the ball, having to reach out to the other aisle and being able to talk their language as well too. Being able to work with the special teams coordinator, being able to work with you guys, being kind of the political figure of the organization. There’s the aspect of having to talk to ownership, the GM. There’s the aspect of then actually having to call the plays.
"There’s a lot to it."