WrigleyField 22

:-o

Another previously unannounced GM candidate. Monti Ossenfort. Titans Director of Player Personnel. Spent 6 years in Patriots org.

Daboll just needs to run the tape of this game for his interview tomorrow lol.

Most probably do. There are certainly cases where a coach gets hired first. I would say most often it's established former Head Coaches who might get hired before a GM. @PFF_Brad (Twitter handle) had one of those Twitter spaces the other night and talking about league structures indicated that despite what order they were hired in, it's probably close to 50% of teams where the coach is really the top of the football ops. And his personal opinion was he hated that structure. Fow whatever it's worth McCaskey said that was his preference. McCaskey said he prefers GM first and GM hires coach, correct? Yes, sorry that was worded confusing. McCaskey would prefer GM first. But if they felt they had a coach they loved they would consider. Couldn't say what that circumstance would be but they'd know when they saw it.

Most probably do. There are certainly cases where a coach gets hired first. I would say most often it's established former Head Coaches who might get hired before a GM. @PFF_Brad (Twitter handle) had one of those Twitter spaces the other night and talking about league structures indicated that despite what order they were hired in, it's probably close to 50% of teams where the coach is really the top of the football ops. And his personal opinion was he hated that structure. Fow whatever it's worth McCaskey said that was his preference. And I wouldn't necessarily worry too much about them interviewing head coaches now. There is a narrow window for any playoff coaches to interview if their team ends up making a long playoff run. So hopefully all these coach interviews are short introductory screenings and provide some advance work for any GM and a serious interview would still occur with any of their top candidates. Saw an interview with Dungy last night as well and he was pretty adamant teams take their time and not worry about being first to hire and missing on candidates. And based on the candidate pool I can't say I disagree. There isn't a single coach name I'm absolutely enamored with above all others.

Some do yea. I wanna say Carolina did. Maybe NYG or NYJ had used Accorsi. I'm sure there's more but the NFL recommends certain guys for it.

I think this is my favorite candidate so far. I'm iffy on Rick Smith and really don't want Ireland. I'm cool with taking a risk on someone from a successful organization like the Browns (that's weird to say) One person's opinion on Cook: And some more info the Asst GM hiring rules

nagy had just presided over an offense wherein the chiefs were one of the best deep ball throwing (or best?) teams in the league with alex smith and got nothing but praise heaped on him by andy reid. he said he'd never had a better head coaching candidate on one of his staffs. the biggest on field red flag would've been the chiefs playoff game. but andy took the bullet for him on that one, IIRC. it was unclear when reid had him calling plays and when he called them himself that season. but he was one of the hottest young candidates around. Really makes me wonder how the Bears can parse out the "hot" candidates - which are many - and the future successful ones. There's got to be more than luck involved. Otherwise it kind of sucks, knowing that we keep rolling the dice over & over hoping not to crap out again. I mean we hired Nagy from one of the respected coaching trees in the NFL, he came from an offensive background, a lot of experience with quarterbacks, and like you said it was thought to be a solid hire at the time. And the first year looked good too. Maybe it's that he only had 1 year at the OC level, and needed more time before making the jump to HC. I don't know. In the end he wound being dog ugly terrible. But I could never have pegged that on day 1. Its a weird one because they had a search seemingly focused on one thing (maximizing offense) and that aspect failed miserably, yet the leadership thing was at least decent and now thats the apparent focus of this search. From an approach standpoint, even without the benefit of hindisght, we took a guy with one year as OC to his resume to be the offensive guru though. Probably should have been questioned more at the time. LaFluer wasn't much more experienced, but also got the benefit of a HOF QB. But that aside the other thing was a varied coaching experience. While he is a definite "McVay tree" guy, even he had some additional exposure. Nagy literally only has served under one HC. Even it being a great one like Reid, it just seems like a risky aspect to his experience. TLDR it is a roll of the dice. At least it's a wide net and they're not excluding half the coaches in the league this time. But also with a wide net you might risk info overload. You're still suspect to getting wooed in an interview setting that isn't reality.

https://theathletic.com/3069761/2022/01/14/it-all-starts-with-the-mccaskeys-how-the-bears-ended-up-in-an-endless-cycle-of-inheriting-the-previous-regimes-trash?source=user-shared-article This is a long article. Only part way through..

Raw, while I know this doesn't absolve your point or anything, good for Culley at least.

At least 2. Can be more, unlike the tango.

He was trashing Olin Kreutz the day before McCaskey did Honestly impressed if McCaskeys created a compelling and effective psyop. Now how is their PR so terrible.

He's gotta be a McCaskey mouthpiece. Thats why he'll also trash them, trying to keep us off the scent.

Yea either guy from the Browns would certainly be an interesting signal. I feel like the Emery hire had shades of McCaskey wanting to embrace analytics, but was like when the Cubs hired that Kaplan guy, just a super rudimentary and basic understanding of what analytics even was. There was that thing about Emery conducting a study of QB draft picks for instance. Like probably one guy with a subscription to pro football references pro database and excel. Then they never really revisited it with Pace where they've had an analytics department of 1. The Browns are just going at it to an extreme degree. I think I read they're the first team to try and do the same thing PFF does, grade every player from every team for every play. Which is kind of crazy. It would be super interesting if McCaskey were to go with Mensah. There would definitely be a big fan push back. And it would signal Polian's role in this whole thing was really more organizational/administrative in nature rather than pushing a org agenda/identity. Yeah, I put Adofo-Mensah more on the younger ones they have consulting (Campbell, Wade). I think Polian is good to have around as a guy who's run a team. He's likely going to boost up the Colts guys and any older/experienced candidates he may have worked with. But Campbell and Wade are likely the ones that have insight to the hot analytic driven candidates like the Browns guys. Yep the little bit I've read about Campbell is interesting. I could totally see him being of an analytical mind, but it's not bearing out in a "spreadsheet spits out a WAR" type, but more of a social sciences, "what untapped areas are we ignoring that will enhance the physical development". But then you go hire the ivy league savant who understand the mathematical and modeling component of what you're aiming to accomplish. Maybe Wade is that, though it's not as immediately obvious how it ties into football. But like the idea of somewhere there cutting through inherent biases.

Yea either guy from the Browns would certainly be an interesting signal. I feel like the Emery hire had shades of McCaskey wanting to embrace analytics, but was like when the Cubs hired that Kaplan guy, just a super rudimentary and basic understanding of what analytics even was. There was that thing about Emery conducting a study of QB draft picks for instance. Like probably one guy with a subscription to pro football references pro database and excel. Then they never really revisited it with Pace where they've had an analytics department of 1. The Browns are just going at it to an extreme degree. I think I read they're the first team to try and do the same thing PFF does, grade every player from every team for every play. Which is kind of crazy. It would be super interesting if McCaskey were to go with Mensah. There would definitely be a big fan push back. And it would signal Polian's role in this whole thing was really more organizational/administrative in nature rather than pushing a org agenda/identity.

Familiar with the athletic article. I'm not saying Dodds isn't a interesting or even exciting candidate it just seems like he's a consensus pick to such a high degree that I can't figure out. Like nearly everywhere in the Bears blogosphere seems to have him top 2, most top spot. It's kind of a startling amount of fan consensus that still doesn't make sense. Just drives my skepticism I guess. We're not immune to being pushed media narratives because it's frankly so hard to know what individual FO guys actually do.

DBB claims no one was blown away by Pederson.

You're ignoring his time in Seattle. I also have Aaron Glenn as my 4th choice for HC. I'm aware of his time in Seattle. I'm actually not convinced all the casuals are.

I see so much Dodds love, but I'll be honest, part of me feels like it's a lot of Ballard regret being projected. Like I certainly see things to like but there's been so much fan consensus around him. Or is it just that he's already made a lot of finalist lists the past few years so there's decent built in name recognition?

I definitely find myself more intrigued with the GM list, but I think that's part of the nature. It's so much easier to see coach warts from the fan perspective. Big thing for me right now is I don't think any of these coaches are "coach above GM" hires. That said I don't mind them doing initial screens. For any playoff coach, the bye week or week after WC round could be the only opportunity until SB bye week, and obviously you don't know who that will be. GM can still do a full search and have some data if someone for their short list ends up on a long playoff run.

Well they're a stronger option now, but luckily doesn't look like theirs and Bears candidates are overlapping much.

Smith is separating from the pack for me as I revisit some things about him. https://theathletic.com/1596742/2020/02/12/my-heart-is-open-now-former-texans-gm-rick-smiths-grief-has-reshaped-his-life?source=user-shared-article Edit- him and Soup are bound to hit it off, right?

I'm also really talking myself into the model of not putting a scout type as GM. While you could probably flip my argument and say exact order doesn't matter, I will try to explain my thinking. The NFL recently added assistant GM as a protected job level. So you can poach another teams staff for a "bona fide" assistant GM role and they can't block (unless they themselves are one of the top 2 spots already). But I don't think anyone really knows what a bona fide GM is. It's basically up to Goodell. So look at Brown in Indy. He's really the number 3 scout/personnel guy behind Ballard/Dodds. So he presumably can't be blocked for a number 2 role as long as Goodell agrees. Making your assistant GM role the top scout role seems like as good approach as any to state its a bona-fide assistant GM role. That Brown happens to be a former Bear alum and might have motivation to come back and be the top talent evaluator and perhaps know a few faces and transition seemlessly. Very convenient. So you end up with something like: GM - Kwesi (he's the only one who fits the type so far) Asst GM Brown reports up to Kwesi and oversees All scouting departments directly including VP of Player Personnel (retain Champ?) and College Scouting (retain Sadowski?) Outside of scouting side (and coaching) your GM is busy building out and overseeing analytics/research, admin/contracts/cap, player development and engagement, sports sciences, facilities. All those big picture org things. But would still carry that final football authority, which I think is important. But the key is it is a delegator role. Maybe admin/contracts falls under asst GM as well, with some soft report lines from analytics up to GM. I think that does effectively create the structure some are after when some fans say they want a "President" role.

This article does not give me good vibes for Flores. Sounds like he wants to be Belichick (surprise surprise). But if you're gonna try and be Bill, ya best deliver. Not sure he can. https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/barry-jackson/article256841207.html