Certain things have come to light with the Chicago Bears dismissing coach Marc Trestman and GM Phil Emery this week.
One of them is that Emery is a real buffoon.
Not so much like his predecessor Jerry Angelo was a buffoon. Angelo, you’ll remember, was the guy who went and got Jay Cutler and then refused to give him any offensive linemen or receivers who were worth a shit. In hindsight, that Cutler move doesn’t look all that great either, but I digress.
No, Emery actually made some decent personnel moves. He’s a buffoon for his handling of the coaching staff.
Obviously, Emery eventually hired Trestman, who gave him an 8-8 season followed by a 5-11 season.
When you look at that by itself, it looks terrible. The guy Emery fired — Lovie Smith — had just led the Bears to a 10-6 season. They didn’t make the playoffs, but then, they weren’t going backwards either.
The decision looks even worse when you consider who Emery passed over to hire Trestman.
As we mentioned on Monday, the top candidate was Bruce Arians, who was the reigning coach of the year. He got hired by Arizona, where he’s led the Cardinals to a 10-6 season, followed by an 11-5 season.
We knew that. We didn’t know exactly how it went down though. Apparently, the dysfunction that was so obvious this year, started right back when Emery came onboard.
The Bears were also considering Seattle offensive coordinator (and Badger great) Darrell Bevell for their head coaching job. Emery enlisted Rod Marinelli, who had agreed to remain on staff to coach the Bears defense under the new head coach, to evaluate the candidates.
But back in mid-January 2013, as part of their final selection process for a head coach to replace Smith, Emery and the organization had Marinelli interview the three finalists for the head-coaching job.
Marinelli was asked to rank the three. He did. Arians was his runaway first choice; Bevell was the second; Trestman was a distant third.
Emery selected Trestman.
When he learned of the decision, Marinelli abruptly angrily resigned and left Halas Hall for Dallas and a de facto demotion to defensive line coach.
So would the Bears have been better off with Arians?
Probably.
Mostly, I’m glad we didn’t have to find out. They honestly probably would have been better off keeping Lovie, but we’ll never know that either.
Instead, we got two years of wonderful, laughable Chicago Bears dysfunction and implosion. Courtesy of Phil Emery.
Well done, sir!
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As much as I hate the Bears at times, I certainly have a heck of a lot more respect for them than the Vikings or Lions. If we must deal with a troublesome rival within our division I would choose the bears every time. Seriously, when the Vikings or Lions are doing well, they just an annoying hinderence and nothing more. I have no respect for either one of those lousy excuse for NFL teams. Plus, they both have proven they can play extremely dirty. They’re Pathetic!
As a Bear fan, I can echo chad’s thoughts somewhat. Though losing to brett favre and Aaron (and everyone else on their teams) over the years has been beyond frustrating, at least for a few of the early lovie years the semblence of a decent rivalry remained in place.
I still dont get why Suh’s past behavior wasn’t factored into the penalty for his latest infraction. That is total BS. And this is coming from a guy who will NEVER forgive Charles Martin of the pack for headhunting McMahon back when the Bears could’ve swept in ’86 as well. Minnesota? meh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martin_%28American_football%29 (for the younguns)
I have to say it’s more fun when it’s a rivalry then the shit show the Bears have been lately. MUCH MORE fun to go to Soldiers and see them knock the Bears out of the playoffs, or win a Halas Trophy in their house. But please please please keep Cutty. He’s just too much fun to watch…
Sad thing is, thanks to Emery’s ill-conceived contract with grossman 2.0, we probably will be stuck with him. Sadder still, cutler is still the best QB we’ve had in decades (yes, better than Jim harbaugh, though I did like erik kramer. just my op)
Won’t matter much as the even bigger issue is our D, being 30+ ranked the last 2 years. As long as rodgers is top flight, the bears are on the backburner in the nfc north.
Have never rooted for the pack ever (seriously I hate you all, going back to the 70s but magnified exponentially by ’86) except for that first Favre superbowl against the Bledsoe’d Pats, but since the Suh thing I will be rooting for them some. Except for vs. seattle.. that should be a great game and I hope rodgers isn’t too hobbled to make it a great game should that come to pass. And if you get through that, the superbowl should be awesome whether its pats/pack or stillers/pack or whomever. Just don’t lose to dallas or there will be snickering, that matchup occurs