Why the Chicago Bears must pass on Brian Flores

Not long after the Miami Dolphins surprisingly fired head coach Brian Flores, the market immediately heated up with multiple teams pursuing the young coach.

One of those teams was the Chicago Bears, who interviewed Flores on Friday for their head coach vacancy.

Many Bears fans were immediately in on Flores, who showed some promise in his three seasons with the Dolphins. Numerous sources even had Flores as the top choice for the Chicago job.

One of those was NFL insider Ian Rapoport, who mentioned that he felt that Flores would “do a great job in Chicago” on the Pat McAfee Show.

Flores was 24-25 with the Dolphins, with a winning season in two of his three seasons. He led the Dolphins to a 10-6 season in 2020 and was 19-14 in the last two years.

Brian Flores has been named as a top candidate for the Chicago Bears head coaching position. Here’s why they must pass on him.

Alas, most of Flores’s success has been a result of the defense. Flores, a defensive coach himself, has struggled to produce a reliable offense in his tenure with the Dolphins. At times, Flores even employed a dual-offensive coordinator scheme in an attempt to improve the offense.

Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa has been in the bottom third of most major quarterback stats and the Fins were ahead of only the New York Jets, the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans for yards per game in 2021 and only four other AFC teams for points per game this year.

While some of that is attributed to the team’s horrendous offensive line, it shouldn’t be overlooked on Flores’s resume.

In addition to an underwhelming offense, Flores reportedly had numerous rifts with players and the coaching staff. Some reports even suggested that he had stopped talking to some individuals way back in November.

While a blunt coach who demands more is never a bad thing in the game of football, it’s concerning when that results in division instead of unity in an organization.

And that’s not the only potential character flaw in Flores.

According to insider Jordan Schultz, Flores and troubled quarterback Deshaun Watson have been in “constant contact” and could end up together in numerous organizations.

No. Absolutely not. None of that for the Chicago Bears, please.

Most importantly, Watson belongs nowhere near an NFL organization given the twenty-two pending lawsuits against him. Watson may find himself in a court room at any given time and has no business being employed by anyone other than the state penitentiary if any of the accusations are true.

And if Flores is this hellbent on working with Watson, that’s a major red flag for many reasons.

Watson hasn’t played a down in the NFL since January of 2021. That would mean nearly two years between snaps. Even if he is able to play, Watson could bring a dark cloud over the locker room with the off-field questions and legal issues surrounding him.

That’s another strike against Flores and his apparent apathy towards locker room and organizational unity.

The Bears need to focus on developing young quarterback Justin Fields, and a defensive coach who has struggled to generate a productive offense in three years and has had numerous rifts with the coaching staff and players is not anyone that the organization should be pursuing.

There’s just too many red flags around Flores to even pursue a second interview, and today’s news about his seeming obsession with coaching Watson is deeply concerning for numerous reasons.

It’s time to move on and find someone who will work with Fields, even if that means altering a coaching philosophy or style of coaching in order to bring out what’s best in him and the team.

The Bears just rid themselves of a head coach whose “my way or the highway” method alienated numerous quarterbacks and produced an awful offense for the past three seasons. The last thing they should be doing is pursuing another coach who’s unable to develop a quarterback or focus on the overall well-being of the locker room.