Ted Phillips graduated from Notre Dame with a business and accounting degree. He started his career as a tax accountant until 1983 when he was hired by the Chicago Bears as part of their business division. He eventually became Director of Finance in 1987 before hitting it big with a promotion to Vice President of Operations in 1993. That was the same year Mike Ditka was fired. So one can trace the end of the last era of greatness for the Bears to the year Phillips started to gain real power in the organization.

Nobody really understood the implications of the direction the organization was going in at the time. Only now with the benefit of hindsight can we see the McCaskey family were trying to run a football team like a corporation. Since Phillips entered the upper echelon of the Bears power structure in ’93 to the present day, the team has managed exactly six playoff appearances.

Six. In 28 total seasons.

Now here the Bears are. On the cusp of yet another rebuild. A lot of fans fail to see the point. As long as Phillips remains in a position of power like team president, which he gained in 1999, nothing they try matters. The guy might be a good businessman but he’s an awful builder of a winning football culture. Yet the McCaskeys have remained steadfast in their loyalty to him. No doubt in part because he helped make them billionaires.

Have things changed? It just might be possible. Watching the Bears get routed 41-25 on Sunday night seems to have altered the atmosphere at Halas Hall. Rumors have circulated that George McCaskey is furious. Enough to where a full teardown of the team power structure is looming with GM Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy on their way out. Nobody can take that seriously though because Phillips will be right there to lead the next search.

Or will he? A source informed SM that for the first time McCaskey is genuinely considering a total shakeup of the organization from top to bottom. Does that include the team president? The exact words used were “everything is on the table.” Where it gets more interesting is this information was reinforced by Jeff Hughes of Da Bears Blog who stated not once but twice that Phillips could actually be in danger.

McCaskeys own the team. They’re not going anywhere.

When they reassign Ted, which will probably happen, they’re still going to just pick another GM and hope he finds a QB. https://t.co/DBHHpOlt9f

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) December 1, 2020

Don’t be so sure.

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) December 1, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA61CrQovls&ab_channel=UndisputedToday

Ted Phillips can’t hide from reality anymore

It’s not just fans who are singling him out anymore. Even the media and former players are doing so. Olin Kreutz took a shot at him a few weeks ago when the Bears really started to hit their current slide. Phillips hired Jerry Angelo. He hired Phil Emery. He hired Ryan Pace. All three failed to accomplish the primary goal of this modern NFL, which was to find a quarterback. At some point, those failures were going to pile high enough to where they couldn’t just be blamed on the GMs.

Maybe it’s the guy who is helping to hire those GMs. McCaskey has freely admitted he is not a football expert. He’s a fan. That is the problem. Anybody in his position should be smart enough to know it might not be wise to have an accountant giving him advice on football-related decisions. The team president should be somebody who actually played or coached in the sport. Making money is great but here’s the thing.

If the Bears were consistently winning? They’d be making way more.

Six playoff appearances. Three playoff wins. In nearly three decades. George Halas would’ve found that inexcusable. Ted Phillips is 68-years old. He’s had a long run with the organization and been afforded every second, third, fourth, and fifth chance to finally get it right. He just hasn’t. The Bears have to thank him for his services and hand that job title to somebody more qualified to hold it.