With four games remaining in the Chicago Bears’ 2021 season, the focus now has shifted to the potential coaching and front office changes that could take place in the offseason. Head coach Matt Nagy is likely to be fired, while general manager Ryan Pace’s future remains uncertain. The decision on whether to fire or retain Pace could be influenced by George McCaskey’s inexperience with overseeing high-level football decisions for the organization.

"George and Ted are probably looking at it this way: We fired Angelo and that didn't work out because we hired Emery and he hired Trestman. After firing those guys we hired Ernie Accorsi. That led to 14-34. So this time we are going to watch this search more closely."

— David Kaplan (@thekapman) January 3, 2018

The McCaskey Family Has No Recent Experience In Hiring General Managers

Since 2001, the Chicago Bears have had only three general managers, with each general manager being hired through a different search process. The one similarity with the hires has been that neither George nor Michael McCaskey never directly led the search for the potential hire. The family that owns the Bears’ have shied away from many vital high-level decisions, with their first potentially coming this offseason.

The Bears’ first prominent general manager was Jerry Angelo, who was hired in the offseason before the 2001 season. Angelo replaced Mark Hatley, who served as Chicago’s de facto general manager, with his official title being Vice President of Pro Personnel. The McCaskeys never officially oversaw the general manager search in 2001 as they hired a high-level search firm to select the best candidate.

When Angelo was fired following the 2011 season, Chicago’s ownership would have team president Ted Phillips lead the search to fill the general manager vacancy. Phillips hired Phil Emery, who was the Director of Scouting for the Kansas City Chiefs. Emery would serve as the Bears’ general manager for three seasons before being fired at the end of the 2014 season due to Chicago’s historically bad season.

In January 2013, Bears interviewed Bruce Arians–that season's NFL Coach of the Year–to replace Lovie Smith. Arians wanted job. Embraced challenge. Then-GM Phil Emery hired Marc Trestman instead–a historically bad blunder.

Congrats to Bruce Arians, Super Bowl-winning coach.

— David Haugh (@DavidHaugh) February 8, 2021

Following Emery’s firing, George McCaskey would have former NFL executive Ernie Accorsi serve as a consultant to lead the general manager search. Accorsi would recommend Pace to ownership for the general manager position, as Pace has been in the role since. In all three searches, none of the prominent McCaskey family members were directly in charge of putting a list of potential candidates together, nor did they conduct the hiring interviews.

McCaskey says search for new GM and coach is underway; reveals #Bears have hired Ernie Accorsi as consultant to help in hiring process.

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) December 29, 2014

Firing Pace Would Force Ownership To Undertake A Task They Have Never Done

If the Bears fire Pace at the end of the season, it will be interesting to see how the general manager search is handled. Accorsi will not return a second time to oversee a hire, nor will Phillips, as he appears to be reducing his role with the organization. Unless Bears’ ownership decides to hire another search firm to conduct the hire, it will fall upon the McCaskey family to make the hire.

The responsibility of hiring a top-level executive could be too much for the family to want to undertake due to the lack of experience, along with a lack of football knowledge. Although George is the McCaskey Family member in charge, there is no guarantee that he will know how to identify the best candidate or convince a candidate to take the job.

According to @AdamHoge, the #Bears have began to do their homework on potential general manager replacements for Ryan Pace.

Hoge says they’ve done homework on at least one college scouting director employed by another NFL club, which isn’t uncommon for teams to do.

— Chris Maltby (@ChrisMaltbyBD) December 16, 2021

There is additional pressure as whoever is hired as Chicago’s next general manager will need to be better than Pace. Although the Bears’ current general manager has only had one winning season during his seven-year tenure, there is potential for ownership to hire an even worse candidate as a replacement. If that happens, it could result in the Bears’ being stuck in mediocrity for a long time.

The inexperience could lead to Pace not being fired as there is precedent showing that the McCaskey family does not understand how to handle football operations. An example would be Hatley’s time with the team as he was a prominent football operations figure for the Bears from 1997 to 2001. Despite his experience with Chicago, ownership enabled him to oversee the 2001 free agency period and the 2001 NFL Draft before hiring Angelo. If an NFL team didn’t have a general manager hired before the free agency period or the draft now, they would be seen as a poorly run football organization.

Another example demonstrating McCaskeys’ inability to make sound football decisions was the 1999 coaching hiring debacle involving Dave McGinnis. McGinnis had served as a linebackers coach for Chicago from 1986 to 1995 and was a finalist for the Bears’ head coaching position in 1999. After Hatley interviewed the coach, Michael McCaskey would schedule a press conference to announce Chicago’s new head coach. The issue was that McGinnis hadn’t accepted to offer, nor had he even discussed a contract with the team. Due to the premature announcement, he would retract his name as a candidate.

This upcoming offseason will be arguably one of the most significant off-seasons in Bears’ history, given the impending coaching and front office changes. If Pace is fired, the McCaskey family will need to get the general manager search right as the responsibility of the search will fall on them. It is the massive weight of that potential hire that may lead Bears’ ownership to retain their embattled general manager due to fear of inexperience.