Bears and Belichick: A Fateful Twist

The Bears could have signed Bill Belichick as coach/GM once and they meet again six coaches, four GMs and 22 years later.

It's true the Bears once considered Bill Belichick for their vacant head coaching position.

They had better plans at the time, though: Hire Dave McGinnis, instead, then botch the hiring, get totally embarrassed, make Ted Phillips go explain Michael McCaskey's screw-up to the media and hire Dick Jauron.

This was when Belichick was coming off an underwhelming performance as Cleveland Browns coach and was a Jets assistant. But those who knew how Belichick was handling that difficult situation from the inside could tell the Bears they were making a huge mistake by not hiring the future Patriots coach. His work had been stellar with Bill Parcells and the Giants and in a different situation than he encountered with Art Modell's former franchise, it was obvious he could succeed.

Hiring Belichick was going to cost a good deal more at the time than hiring McGinnis and it also meant Belichick would have wanted power over personnel.

At the time the Bears didn't even have a general manager, so considering that a bad thing might have been the greatest blunder in the entire missed opportunity. Belichick has been the defacto GM in New England besides being coach.

The Bears could have had Belichick. Instead, the Patriots got him and got six rings, while the Bears over the years got six different coaches. 

Regardless, it's safe to assume Bears ownership was feeling very justified in its decision in 2000 when Shane Matthews outdueled Drew Bledsoe at Soldier Field in a 24-17 Bears win for Jauron over Belichick's first Patriots team.

Now, 22 years later, it doesn't quite look like such a good move, does it?

Matt Eberflus is their sixth coach since then and Belichick is going to go down into the books as the greatest coach in NFL history after winning more Super Bowls (6) and making more Super Bowls (9) than anyone.

The Bears have not beaten the Patriots since 2000 and have had a handful of completely embarrassing defeats against them.

Asked if Belichick is the gold standard for coaching, Eberflus did not hedge.

"I would say that, yeah, look at the record, the record speaks for itself," Eberflus said. "We're all really judged on wins and losses and championships, and certainly he has that.

"He's done a great job. His players play for him. Fundamentally sound. And his teams do the same thing. They're fundamentally sound and they play football the right way."

Ironically, on Monday night Belichick will try to pass Bears founder George Halas for the second-most wins in league history, and it's only a matter of a few seasons—if he decides to coach that long—until he passes Don Shula to record the most wins.

"When you look at the coaches, the history of the game with Mr. Halas and coach Belichick, wow, what a career they both have had and the impact they’ve had on the game of football," Eberflus said. "It's just amazing. And obviously George Halas here with the Bears, obviously the things he's done and the reputation he has and everything he's done for the Bears is just really amazing when you look back at the history."

That's the Bears all right: Their history. It's ancient history. They have nothing else.

The Bears have restarted under Eberflus in a predictable fashion.

They lack the manpower to accomplish what he and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy would like to do on the field, largely because they committed to tearing up the old salary cap and getting a fresh start to build a team in the proper way.

After shocking everyone with the win over San Francisco and beating an outmanned Texans team, it's been a three-game losing streak and they've tried to reboot during the mini-bye that followed the potential victory they blew against Washington. It's very possible this current losing streak could go on and on.

A mini-reboot is not sufficient for fixing their personnel problems at receiver, on the offensive line and in their defensive front.

They enter this game having given up more sacks through Week 6 than any team, a year after they led the league in the same category.

They run the ball fairly well except when they must run it, and then they can't in the red zone.

We are told running opens the way for the passing attack to work.

They're running but it's still not working. 

They're still last in passing yards, although they have managed to elevate to 31st in scoring and 28th in overall offense.

They have climbed past Carolina (71.6) in team passer rating at 72.7, but no one else. They're still last in passing first downs, passing touchdowns (4) and completion percentage (54.8).

These are regions in NFL statistics they know very well, whether it's John Shoop, Terry Shea, Adam Gase, Dowell Loggains, Bill Lazor and now Getsy heading up the attack.

It takes time when starting from scratch, but you'd at least like to see a pulse by now.

It's tiresome seeing teams score and pass at relative will in the NFL, only to have the Bears score 10 against the Packers, 12 against the Giants and seven against the juggernaut Commanders.

Nor is it easy seeing quarterbacks like Bailey Zappe and Cooper Rush come in out of nowhere and play effectively. For that matter, they could have easily drafted Jalen Hurts in 2020 instead of Jaylon Johnson and Cole Kmet. He's tearing up the league now. 

It's been 22 years since they last figured out how to beat Belichick. 

However, the Bears have figured out how to do something better than Belichick.

Belichick's team once was accused of letting the air out of footballs in the infamous "deflategate" scandal, and they were slapped down for this.

The Bears this year have taken the air out of football, in a manner of speaking, and no one is accusing them of doing anything other than make a push for the first pick in the draft.

Somehow, it seems like none of their problems would have happened if more than two decades ago they simply handed out the cash and power to Belichick

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The Line: Patriots by 8  1/2 (39 1/2).

BearDigest Record: 5-1, 3-3 vs. the spread, 2-4 vs. the total.

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