The first thing we — and they, meaning the McCaskeys, Warren, Poles and the others — all need to know is that this selection is not a singular choice. That this is not an isolated occurrence or circumstance. That it is connected to damn near all things before. That every post-Mike Ditka/Buddy Ryan coaching decision, either bringing in or letting go, made by the Bears is linked to the decision they’re soon about to make.
Until then, the Bears are making it difficult for those outside — and some inside, who will remain anonymous for the sake of being labeled snitches — of Halas Hall to (in the infamous words of a Philadelphia basketball organization that has yet, in selling the world their own B.S, to advance past the second round of the playoffs in 24 years and counting) ‘‘trust the process.’’
Their process. Bears-style. The schizophrenic plan that we are watching being put on display for us to trust could all lead to the ‘‘right’’ decision being made in the end. But this ‘‘going all out’’ search to ‘‘go all in’’ on someone who, at this point, will be one of (at least) 20 candidates doesn’t inspire confidence the Bears have a solid idea on exactly what it is they are in search of.
Lost in the weeds — well, in our case, the concrete — remains the growing optic of uncertainty attached to this coaching search. The one constant that shapes these 100 neighborhoods (77 ‘‘community areas,’’ according to chicago.gov) that have blindly supported this franchise through hell, high Lake Michigan water and Harold’s Chicken closures.
Failure is bound when uncertainty is the root. And the names that continue to come up daily in the ever-evolving storyline shaping what this quest for football leadership has become make the open-to-anyone-even-slightly-qualified procedure for how the Bears are going about this highly suss.
By the day, we know that they know that they don’t know.
Ben Johnson. Mike McCarthy. Drew Petzing. Every coach a different style, different philosophy and approach when it comes to football, different background, all coming from different destinations and vantage points. Thomas Brown. Pete Carroll. Mike Kafka. Brian Flores. Two coaches who’ve never coached in the NFL in any capacity before: Iowa State’s Matt Campbell and Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman. The range between Todd Monken’s and Arthur Smith’s résumés, Aaron Glenn’s and Anthony Weaver’s backgrounds, Ron Rivera’s pedigree and David Shaw’s CV.
Still, there’s more.
It’s not making our expecting the worst any better. An ongoing and ever-expanding — while candidates accept other offers — head-coaching tracker (thanks, Sun-Times) ain’t cute. It comes off as a look of vacillation; screams ‘‘iffy,’’ ‘‘let’s just try this,’’ ‘‘OK, now see if this works’’; and tightropes on low-grade maladroitness. The number of candidates and options keeps going up, while the belief the Bears know — or have an idea — exactly what they’re looking for keeps going down.
The net is cast too wide, the finding of a ‘‘leader of men’’ too broad. It has become the football adaptation of the opening episodes of ‘‘The Bachelor’’ or ‘‘The Bachelorette.’’ Where the decision-makers know they’re looking for love but tragically, more often than not, have no clue about what real love is.
Not saying, as stated before, that what the Bears are doing is wrong or that the way they ‘‘seem’’ to be going about this search won’t result in the right find. The concern is what this looks like to the world outside of theirs — to us, to potential candidates, to potential free agents — in comparison to other NFL teams going through the same coaching searches. To how this reflects their past.
You’d think with the coaches they’ve been through in the last seven tries (more than twice as many head coaches in the last 32 years as the Steelers have had in the last 56 years) they’d know, simply by the process of elimination and termination, exactly what they are looking for. That, though, would be too off-brand.
There’s a surrealness to the Bears’ approach in choosing the one they feel will be best fit to run the on-field department of their historic empire. Their determinism doesn’t make them look determined; it makes them look indifferent, overwhelmed, unsure, disoriented, prematurely indecisive, the same. As the Bears’ brain trust immerses itself in dreams of making this team respectable, it continues to make it look as though it’s purposely keeping things ancestral to keep the ‘‘family’’ happy in its ‘‘talk of the town’’ loyalty to losing, while OG ‘‘Papa Bear’’ Halas keeps spinning in his mausoleum.
Because, unfairly and unfortunately, to detach the past coaching selections and decisions, regardless of who made them at the time, is an impossibility this city just can’t do. Way too much is affixed because we’ve walked this walk with the Bears so many times before, and this time — for many, many reasons, including not further ruining a prodigious quarterback’s future before it really begins — more happens to be at stake.
Every past head-coaching choice has led the Bears to this moment of what will become their covenant. S— ain’t easy. If it was, every team in the NFL would be able to do it. Which they aren’t. It’s just that recently and right now, too many teams outside of ours seem to be doing it better.