Chicago Bears: New head coaching hire coming soon?

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Pace has acted quickly in the team’s search for a new head coach. Could that lead to John Fox’s replacement being named this week?

It hasn’t even officially been a week since John Fox was fired as the head coach of the Chicago Bears and general manager Ryan Pace may have concluded his interviews with head coaching candidates on Sunday in Kansas City.

Pace, along with chairman George McCaskey and president Ted Phillips, traveled to Kansas City on Sunday to conduct an interview with Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Matt Nagy. The timing of Pace’s interview with Nagy certainly is of interest, considering the Chiefs’ offense collapsed in their playoff loss to the Tennessee Titans on Saturday night.

Pace’s interview with Nagy on Sunday likely concludes the Bears’ first round of interviews. Since Wednesday, Pace has interviewed six candidates in hopes of finding Chicago’s next head coach: Bears’ defensive coordinator Vic Fangio; Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator George Edwards; Vikings offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur; New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels; Philadelphia Eagles head coach John DeFilippo and Nagy on Sunday.

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It’s extremely likely that the Bears’ next head coach will be one of those six candidates.

It’s also possible that a college coach may have been interviewed by the Bears, but the team may not have made an announcement out of respect to the coach and university.

Chances are we will not know about a college coach being interview until the said coach is either announced as the new head coach of the Bears or a report surfaces after the Bears have made the hiring official of another candidate.

Regardless, for the Bears, the next step in the process of finding a new head coach may be the actual hire.

With six interviews since last Wednesday, it is clear that Pace is moving quickly to fill the team’s coaching vacancy. The reason for the urgency is that five of the six candidates interviewed by the Bears are currently employed by teams in the playoffs. This means the opportunities for the Bears to interview the candidates after this weekend may have been limited.

That could also be the reason why Phillips and McCaskey joined Pace during the interviews this past weekend.

A traditional head coaching search features two rounds of interviews. The first round consists of the general manager meeting with prospective candidates and narrowing the list down to two or three finalists. The second round of interviews consists of the finalists traveling to the team’s headquarters to meet with ownership.

After the second round of interviews is when a finalist is chosen to be the next head coach of a team.

During their search for a replacement to Fox, the Bears have eliminated the need for a second round of interviews. After interviewing Nagy on Sunday, it’s entirely possible, if not likely that Pace, Phillips, and McCaskey have an idea of the candidate that they want to hire.

The final step would be working out the contract, and it likely will be a four-year deal so that the team’s head coach can be on the same timeline as Pace.

Next: Three reasons for Chicago Bears to hire Pat Shurmur

The hunch here is that the Bears will have their head coach in place by the end of this week. However, it may not be made official if the Chicago Bears’ next head coach is still working with one of the teams currently in the playoffs.

Here’s hoping the Chicago Bears room already have their guy picked, and that we’ll find out who it is soon.

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