The Chicago Bears might be down to three head coaching candidates

Hiring hasn’t always been easy for the Chicago Bears.  With the opportunity for a fresh start after letting go of the toxic partnership of Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace, is it finally the moment we see Chicago put themselves ahead of the game with the right staff. With uprising talent flooding the market, you can’t help but ask yourself what are the bears up to now?

After Ian Rapport sent Bears fans into a frenzy on Monday with what could be the “final three” for the head coaching job, I couldn’t help but shake my head and wonder. With the potential young talent that floats throughout the league, why mention guys like Dan Quinn and Jim Caldwell when narrowing down the playing field?

Caldwell has a career 64-54 coaching record in 7 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and Detroit Lions. In Caldwell’s first two seasons with the Colts, Caldwell helped them reach the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.

In his first year, he created a serious buzz around the league after Indianapolis went 14-2 in the regular season and then went on to win the AFC. In his second season, the Colts finished out the regular season at 10-6 and were bounced in the first round of the playoffs.

In his final season, Caldwell and the Colts parted ways after a nightmare of a 2-14 season. That ultimately led him to Detroit where in 4 seasons, Caldwell led the Lions to the playoffs 2 times (although never winning a playoff game).

Is Caldwell the answer to the Bears’ infamously bad hiring process? Absolutely not. While Caldwell is the only coach of the 3 with an emphasis offensively, Caldwell hasn’t coached since 2017.

With a young quarterback and an overall young team going through a rebuild, I can’t be on board with the Bears hiring another unproven coach who is approaching 68 years old to come back into the league nearly 5 years later after being fired by a division rival in Detroit.

It sounds like the Chicago Bears might be down to three head-coach candidates.

Quinn, who posed as head coach for the Atlanta Falcons from 2015-2020 is also on the Bears’ radar. Quinn, who has been proven to be a force in the defensive coordinator department through his time in the NFL, can’t say the same about being the coach who leads the charge.

He helped lead the Falcons to the Super Bowl in 2016. After that, he slowly but surely fizzled out of his head coaching role in 2020 after starting the season 0-5 with the Falcons where he was then fired mid-season.

In the early stages of his career, his success came while coaching the “legion of boom” on the defensive side of the ball when the Seattle Seahawks went 13-3 and rolled past Denver to win the Super Bowl.

Quinn has had great success once again coaching the Dallas Cowboys defense this season. As a head coach, however, Quinn is just 46-44 and has been criticized mostly for his inability to lead a football team.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Dan Quinn as the Bears’ next defensive coordinator but it seems as though the league, as well as Quinn, have their sites on him being a head coach once again. Quinn is a bad fit for the Bears who possesses no offensive ability and a sub 500 record in the National Football League.

Eberflus was a linebacker coach who started his NFL career with the Cleveland Browns in 2009. From there, he bounced around the league until he found his defensive coordinating home with the Indianapolis Colts.

Eberflus has become a big name in the NFL since finishing 3rd in assistant coach of the year in 2018 while also developing Darius Leonard on his way to becoming the defensive rookie of the year.

Eberflus certainly deserves a shot as a head coach in this league but he may want to start with a team that is focused on primarily strengthening their defense.

While I do see serious potential in Eberflus, once again I can’t get behind hiring a coach who possesses defensive emphasis. That can’t happen after just drafting Justin Fields a year ago accompanied by David Montgomery and Darnell Mooney in the years prior.

Time will tell who the Bears will ultimately hire but they should focus on an offensive mind who is young and who knows how to bring the most out of this youthful, hungry team. Brian Flores is my front runner for the position. I’m not exactly sure why he’s been neglected.

After what he’s shown as far as production in Miami, I don’t see how there is any speculation. Flores built a successful offense around Tua Tagovailoa is lightyears behind Fields. Touching base on Daboll, I’m not completely sold. Daboll could be a product of his QB.

He has had great success coaching offense for the Buffalo Bills. He is ultimately responsible for the success of Josh Allen and has leaned pretty heavily on the 6’5 240 pound QB. Daboll, who up until Buffalos late-game OT heartbreak loss in Kansas City, ran 68% of the offense through Allen.

Is the Buffalo OC worthy of great coaching? How will he coach without the superhuman athlete? Of course, the answers become unknown but coaching is a lot easier when Allen is improvising with laser focus, a rocket arm, and 4.7 speed when evading pressure.

Many argue that Daboll can get a hold of Fields and make him just as special but after many tiresome seasons, it is hard to leave that up to chance.