Chicago Bears fans argue every year who is to blame for this team never being good enough. Most stick with the old faithful at the quarterback position. The parade of sadness gets longer each year. Others aim higher at the head coaches may have a couple of decent years but can never sustain success. Still, more go even higher than that to the general manager who constructs the entire team. Then there are those who continue to point to the very top at the one constant throughout this mediocrity. One Olin Kreutz himself isn’t letting slip through the cracks this time.
That being Ted Phillips. This man became the Bears President in 1999 and has not relinquished that job for 21 years now. During that span, the Bears have made the playoffs five times and failed to win a championship. He’s the one who has had a say in every major hire the team has made during that time including every GM and head coach from Jerry Angelo and Phil Emery to Lovie Smith and Marc Trestman.
Now Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy sit at his feet.
They aren’t looking so hot either. After a good start in 2018 with a division title, the pair has managed a 13-12 record since then headlined by one of the worst offenses in the NFL. This seems to be the trend that holds true throughout Phillips’ tenure. Great defenses matched with bad offenses and zero knowledge of how to find the right people to locate and develop a good quarterback.
While Kreutz believes barring a major collapse that Pace will be back, he fears moving on from him won’t solve much. He told Red Line Radio that Phillips will still be the guy involved in the decision to hire his replacement. So will anything really change?
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“Here’s the bigger issue you’ve got to start talking about. The Bears have struggled with success now for awhile here. Finding a successful GM. Finding a successful head coach. Eventually, you have to start asking, ‘Who’s hiring those guys?’ If the same guys are going to make the decisions, well then you’re just going to keep getting the same decisions year after year after year.
Eventually, George and the McCaskey family may have to look into Ted Phillips and how they’re hiring and how they’re picking GMs and how they’re picking head coaches who is up there in the brain trust that are making these decisions over and over again that don’t equal success.”
Olin Kreutz raises an inescapable point
The Bears have tried to downplay Phillips’ involvement in the football process. Yet every time they usher in a new GM or a new coach, he’s the one who ends up showing his face. Don’t be fooled. This guy isn’t some figurehead. He the guy between the football operations and George McCaskey. That gives him a tremendous amount of power. This team has consistently been built in his vision for two decades.
It always seems like the organization prioritizes things that don’t matter to the big picture. Things like being able to conduct a press conference the way they want it. Prioritizing guys that are “culture-builders” but at the same time come across as largely milk toast. Limited personality or charisma. Why? Mostly because men like that can turn into a distraction. This team won’t have any of that after what they experienced with Mike Ditka.
The bottom line is Phillips isn’t a football guy. He was never a football guy. He arrived in Chicago with an accounting background. His job is to make money. That is why the McCaskeys have kept him around. They have never stopped to ask the obvious question. Is having an accountant in charge of a football organization the best idea?
Olin Kreutz doesn’t think so.