Bears Need President with Football Training

Those still around Halas Hall's media room who recall how it all went down have dwindled in numbers, although a few of us are left.

Ted Phillips came out to the Halas Hall auditorium with face gaunt, sweating badly in the television lights and did what he had been sent out to do. He tried to explain how it was the owner's son had botched hiring the next Chicago Bears head coach.

Phillips would never have sought such a duty. No one would. No one should have been explaining how Dave McGinnis was not head coach other than Michael McCaskey.

On Friday, the Bears and Phillips announced his retirement coming at the end of this year. The dutiful soldier, Phillips, will no longer need to do the dirty work for a family that used him like Michael Ehrmantraut of Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, or Winston Wolfe in Pulp Fiction.

He became their fixer over the years when what they really needed was a versatile, well-prepared football guy in the front office properly overseeing things.

It was right there in a press release by the Bears, a comment said to be made by none other than Virginia McCaskey herself.

"He started out with us as a financial expert. Anything that he was ever asked to take care of, he came through and did it very well. We've been very blessed to have him," Mrs. McCaskey said according to the Bears release.

It's all true, particularly the part about asking Phillips to do things.

He was asked to do more than any financial expert should ever be asked to do in the NFL.

Phillips negotiated contracts for the longest time, then he went on to become president and CEO after the family kicked Michael McCaskey upstairs.

Phillips obviously had no formal football training NFL-style. Mike Ditka used to refer to him as "the bean counter." Phillips started working for the Bears during the Ditka era and gradually took on more and more responsibilties, including some duties he had no qualifications to possess.

It became quite the fashionable thing among Bears fans to bash Phillips when things took downward turns with free agents, draft picks, the GM, the coach or the team in general.

"Phillips is up there meddling," came the inevitable outcry.

After all, a non-football guy was being saddled with making decisions affecting the product on the field. It didn't quite work exactly this way, but essentially, yes, Phillips was ultimately impacting football decisions on a long-term basis whenever he was involved in hiring or firing a GM or a coach. It might not have been a daily impact, but long-term decisions definitely affect the short-term ones.

Phillips didn't pursue this for fun or an ego trip. The family entrusted him with these duties, as Mrs. McCaskey's comment said. He did his job.

There's a teaching moment here.

The McCaskeys put the fate of their multi-billion dollar business constantly in the hands of a person highly qualified to do many things in it, but not what they really needed and asked of him.

It's why they are at six playoff berths in Phillips' 23 years with three playoff wins total.

It's why the Lombardi Trophy in the case up at Halas Hall sits in there alone.

It's not entirely Phillips' fault. Phillips did his duty, sometimes relishing the responsibility a bit too much, but still he did what he was told as well as he could. This was the problem. It wasn't good enough.

He did other things, like he got the family a stadium and now another one, it seems. He brought the team back to Illinois for training camp and then back to Halas Hall itself. And Halas Hall, with all of its modern conveniences and sparkle, is a tribute to his efforts. It's an incredible facility that leaves visitors from other teams entirely flabbergasted when they see the campus.

But the Bears have been losers, not winners.

His efforts have been sufficient, just not good enough on-field for what Forbes says is the fifth most valuable franchise in the most valued sports league, a team said to be worth $5.6 billion.

A modern NFL team needs qualified football people running the football side and it seems the McCaskeys now have realized this.

In January, they revised their organizational structure to take away Phillips' power over the GM and ultimately the coach. The president position he holds now does not have an impact on football itself.

The problem with this is the coach and GM do answer to George McCaskey. He's no more qualified than Phillips, probably even less.

Despite McCaskey joking about spring chickens and the like during the process of hiring GM Ryan Poles and coach Matt Eberflus, there really is a serious age situation at work.

George isn't going to be presiding over everthing forever.

The Bears need to start looking forward and make whatever further structural changes must be made to ensure that succession won't create future problems for the way decisions are made on the field as well as off of it.

The next team president/CEO needs to be someone who does know both the football and the business sides of it. The team moves better into the future this way.

If not, then there needs to be a clearer definition of who is in charge of the GM and coach going into the distant future.

What they don't need is to take someone from the front office again and turn them into something they are not qualified to be, regardless of how hard they work to accomplish their tasks.

Let a professional do it. This next hiring or promotion needs to be done properly.

There is one other way for the McCaskeys to avoid all these tough decisions ahead, and that's to sell the team.

This is not happening, but it's just a thought.

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