Upon further review, Chicago Bears brass ran out of courage

In the end, there were no surprises from the Chicago Bears. The band is back together again for at least one more season.  Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace will return for year four and seven respectively. Team President Ted Phillips heads into year 23. While this excites exactly no one, it has always felt like the Bears’ plan.

Chairman George McCaskey is fond of Pace and Nagy’s professionalism, collaboration and their ability to turn a negative into a positive. Phillips guided the organization through the pandemic communicating extensively with Bears employees. Zero playoff wins and players regressing seem less important. Six-game losing streaks have been deemed acceptable as long as  you learned something along the way. This would be completely acceptable for the second grade, bizarre for the NFL.

Actions say a lot. So does the seemingly never-ending silence during the season. The Bears’ brass said nothing and did less once again during the 2020 season, the standard in Bears-great-culture-world. Pace is allowed to disappear through losing streaks and miserable quarterback play leaving Nagy to answer all the questions.

Chicago Bears choose the status quo after another disappointing season

Perhaps there is no upside in Pace breaking tradition and addressing the media and Bears fans during a troublesome November, but it would demonstrate some integrity. Essentially, he would be saying, “I am not going to let my head coach take bullet after bullet for me.” Philipps popping into a press conference when things go sideways would also be appreciated. And stunning.

As for Nagy, he did his best to keep the team moving forward when the reasons dwindled. At 5-7, the Bears could have gone away but instead they climbed back to 8-8. Nagy deserves at least a sliver of credit for the turnaround, although it’s akin to a driver who was off on the shoulder texting, getting back on the road and putting his phone down.

Good job, you didn’t kill anyone, now please get home safely. Nice job beating woebegone Jacksonville and Houston with a side of non-playoff Minnesota.

That’s what it feels like the Bears are trying to do, get home safely, or put another way, stay relevant. Not that they don’t want to win. It’s more of the “how” part.

Which at the end of the day doesn’t seem like the mystery the Bears continually make it out to be. Hire the best people and let them do their jobs. Tom Ricketts found Theo Epstein. Rocky Wirtz identified hockey on television and John McDonough. The White Sox traded their star players in an aggressive rebuild, the most logical decision.

The Bears? Hire a first-time general manager Pace, who then hires first-time head coach Nagy,(after his initial hire of John Fox didn’t work out) and hope for the best. Go back further and you can watch Phillips preside over Phil Emery, Marc Trestman, endless offensive coordinators and three playoff wins since the mid-’90s.

No one should be surprised at the consistent mediocre results. I’ll allow a slight bewilderment at the three sticking around and some rage at the status quo.

Give the Chicago Bears an A for indifference

Give the Bears an “A” for not caring what their fans think. They knew their decision would not be popular and said so. Can you imagine what the conversations at Halas Hall were like leading up to Wednesday’s press conference? We are not going to make change just for change sake! Perhaps said with more of a whimper than a defiant tone.

This is where McCaskey needed to boldly reassure Bear fans the organization has learned from the now decades-long shortcomings and that a new day is coming. Instead, we got a caring compassionate McCaskey who you would love to have as a substitute teacher rather than someone in charge of one of the most iconic franchises in all of sports.

The Bears have put their fans in the fetal position once again. Blankee please. No one knows when it will be safe to come out and peer his or her heads come noon on Sunday. As a side note to the schedule makers, please keep the Bears out of primetime until further notice, say 2025.

It takes courage to move forward. Even more courage when you have swung and missed time and time again. The Bears sadly have lost their courage to do anything other than hope for a better day. They have decided to close their eyes and forge ahead logic be damned. Kick the can down the road one more year.

Everyone knows what needed to be done. Aggressive, strategic, bold change.

Bears fans deserve better. They didn’t get it.