Why Odds Are Against Quick Bears Turnaround
The inevitable question came for new Bears GM Ryan Poles at his introductory press conference.
Is this a total rebuild or retooling?
Poles answered the way a new GM must answer in a city with downtrodden fans, where a coach and GM were just fired after three seasons of mediocre football.
"Yeah, absolutely do I think we can be competitive," Poles said. "And the beautiful thing about football is what we just saw with the Bengals. Everyone, once the Super Bowl is played, goes back to 0‐0 and has the ability to improve their roster, make changes.
"We all know it's fluid on a yearly basis, so we're going to attack it and our goal is always going to be to be in contention and win games."
It's easier to drown in fluid situations.
The Bengals might be darlings of the NFL world and in the Super Bowl but Cincinnati went through seasons of 2-14 and 4-11-1 under coach Zac Taylor before getting it done.
One man's retooling is another man's rebuild.
The Bears clearly are definitely not reloading. They are entering a rebuilding season whether they want to call it a reboot, revamping, reconstruction or renovation. What they don't want is a rerun of the previous three seasons, but it's quite possible they could get something far worse before it gets better.
The key is how long it stays worse. Here's why it has to be worse first.
1. They Gutted the Coaching Staff
All three coordinators and almost all the position coaches have been filled from outside the organization. This is usually the approach when you're rebuilding. A "soft" rebuild might be more like what the Bears did in 2018. It's easier to succeed immediately when a team has been building talent and gets one side of the ball right, then gets a drastically needed jolt with an energizing coach like Matt Nagy. The best qualities Nagy had were his enthusiasm and optimism. A team mired in three years of John Fox's defeat was ready to erupt that season because they'd been fitting talent on the defensive side for all three years and retained the same system and defensive coaching staff. Only the offense had new faces and new voices delivering a different message. It won't be the same this time. There is no familiarity anywhere and even if Matt Eberflus brings in necessary jolts of logic and practicality, his message is being delivered by entirely different voices to players who never heard this in the past.
2. Systems Change
You don't pick up a new offense and a new defense overnight. Returning players need to do it a different way now in a 4-3 defense where they'll play zone coverage differently than in the past, and where the linemen and linebacker have different responsibilities. The Bears had played defense that way for seven years and even though they were comfortable and did it well, teams need to switch it up after a while. Aaron Rodgers certainly had them figured out. That old system had defensive linemen largely responsible for two gaps up front and occupying blockers so linebackers or backside line help could make plays. They played disguised zone coverage. Now they'll drastically alter it, with linemen attacking gaps and everyone in the front seven headed upfield or playing pass defense in an easier system to understand but one also easier for quarterbacks to read. The offense needed trashing badly. It had begun to rot in place and never did work the right way, but installing an entirely different playbook takes time and getting it to function perfectly even more time. Eberflus tried to alleviate fears of change by telling everyone this is the third time they've put in a 4-3 defense now so he knows what he's doing. It's true, but when he did it in Dallas he wasn't in charge, and when he did it in Indianapolis he was in charge of one side of the ball and not the entire team. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy can't say he was in charge of installing an offense when both Matt LaFleur and Nathaniel Hackett bore this responsibility in Green Bay. The closest he has come was for one season at Mississippi State, and college football is a totally different circumstance. It's change on both sides of the ball now and for at least a while chaos will rule over order.
3. Personnel Change
It's not even going to be the same personnel when the Bears line up in this new system with new coaches. They could be changing three or four starting positions in the secondary. They're going to need at least two new linebacker starters alongside Roquan Smith unless they plan to start 30-something inside linebackers at positions where something different is required of them than the 3-4 demanded. The defensive line could lose two or more starters. On offense, the wide receivers, tight ends and one or two positions up front could change. The Tribune's Brad Biggs quoted an unnamed agent saying free agent guard James Daniels might pull in $12 million a year on the open market. Matching this doesn't seem to make much sense when they could draft one for far less and have it be a lineman Poles feels is a perfect fit for what they're doing on offense. There have been questions about center since shortly after Sam Mustipher took over as starter. Three tackles are unrestricted free agents and one of those is 40-year-old Jason Peters, and no one can be sure at this point whether the new coaches and Poles feel both Teven Jenkins and Larry Borom are better line fits at tackle or guard. Only Darnell Mooney is under contract among the top four wide receivers and paying $16 million or more for Allen Robinson after the season he just had seems, at best, a tough decision to make and more likely a polite "thank you for your service." The only certainty at tight end is Cole Kmet with the rest either unestablished as players or entering some form of free agency.
4. History
There have been 20 coaching changes at the end of the last three seasons in the NFL and only twice in those 20 did a team make the playoffs the next season after they changed both the coach and general manager. This is a big obstacle.
Those were both in 2020 when the Browns went to the playoffs under Kevin Stefanski and Washington did after Ron Rivera's team won the NFC East with only a 7-9 record. There have been only four teams out of the 20 make the playoffs the year after a coaching change from 2019-21, regardless of whether they changed GMs. The other two were Green Bay in 2019 with Matt LaFleur and the Eagles this season under Nick Sirianni.
In all, seven teams fired the GM and coach during this period at the same time and five had better records the next season.
Don't get too excited about this. What usually happened was the teams that switched GM and coach were so bad that when they got better they were still very bad.
Of those seven who fired the coach and GM at the same time, the average win total for the next season was 6.0 and that figure was propped up by the 11 wins Cleveland had in 2020.
The Bears just went through a six-win season. There is one ray of hope here.
The 2020 Browns were the only team to win as many as six games after switching both the GM and coach in the last three years. After their six-win season in 2019, they made the playoffs and win a postseason game.
It's pinning an awful lot on Poles and Eberflus to expect them to repeat what only one losing franchise with a new GM and coach did in the last three years.
After Firing Coach and GM
(Since 2018)
| Team, Year | Record | Next Season |
|---|---|---|
2020 Lions | 5-11 | 3-13-1 |
2020 Texans | 4-12 | 4-13 |
2020 Jaguars | 1-15 | 3-14 |
2020 Falcons | 4-12 | 7-10 |
2019 Browns | 6-10 | 11-5 (playoffs) |
2019 Redskins | 3-13 | 7-9 (playoffs) |
2018 Jets | 4-12 | 5-11 |
After Firing Coach Only
(Since 2018)
| Team, Year | Record | Next Season |
|---|---|---|
2020 Jets | 2-14 | 4-13 |
2020 Chargers | 7-9 | 9-8 |
2020 Eagles | 4-11-1 | 9-8 (playoffs) |
2019 Cowboys | 8-8 | 6-10 |
2019 Giants | 4-12 | 6-10 |
2019 Panthers | 5-11 | 5-11 |
2018 Bengals | 6-10 | 2-14 |
2018 Dolphins | 7-9 | 5-11 |
2018 Browns | 7-8-1 | 6-10 |
2018 Broncos | 6-10 | 7-9 |
2018 Packers | 6-9-1 | 13-3 (playoffs) |
2018 Buccaneers | 5-11 | 7-9 |
2018 Cardinals | 3-13 | 5-10-1 |
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
