Chicago Bears front office can learn much from the Baltimore Ravens
By Todd Welter
Hire head coaches who can lead and adapt…
Leadership being a top trait in a head coach is not a new concept. The Chicago Bears have been sorely lacking when using that concept to identify a head coach–although, we will get that to a moment.
Baltimore on the other hand has never had that issue. The Ravens have only had Ted Marchiborda, Brian Billick, and John Harbaugh as their head coaches.
Marchiborda failed while Billick won a Super Bowl. Harbaugh also owns a Ravens’ Super Bowl ring and is currently leading Baltimore’s recent run of success.
Billick came to Baltimore in 1999 as the offensive genius behind those Minnesota Vikings high-octane offenses. He won a Super Bowl on defense, running the ball, and asking Dilfer to manage the game.
Billick’s tenure was never known for explosive offenses. The Ravens only finished once in the NFL’s top-10 in scoring. Billick had success in Baltimore because he could lead a team and he could adapt.
He did not force his offense down his team’s throat–like a certain current Bears’ head coach. He adapted his offense to the strength of the team which was a top-notch run game.
Harbaugh replaced Billick after being a special teams coach. John has never been known as an offensive or defensive genius. He is a natural-born leader–his dad is a legendary college coach. He fits the current NFL CEO-type head coach.
What makes him an even better head coach than any Bears head coach the last decade is he will adapt to his talent. He overhauled his entire offense to fit Jackson’s talent. He brought in Greg Roman to run the offense and call plays that would maximize and develop Jackson into an MVP.
The Bears have gone back-and-forth between supposed offensive geniuses in Matt Nagy and Marc Trestman and defensive geniuses in Lovie Smith and John Fox. Only Smith showed the ability to lead but was never adaptable–he lived and eventually died with running the Tampa-2 defense and never paying attention to his offense.
Harbaugh stayed cool on Sunday while Nagy unraveled down the stretch. Nagy was cursing out the person charged with making sure the headsets worked and then kept calling inexplicable timeouts. Harbaugh stayed focused and kept the team focused despite having over 15 players on injured reserve to get a win. Harbaugh did all that because he can lead no matter what the situation is.
The Chicago Bears should look at leadership ability as the top quality the next head coach should have if and when Nagy is fired. The second trait would be the ability to adapt a philosophy to the talent to win and then work down the rest of required traits checklist. It seems to work out for the Ravens.