State of the Nation

We would like to send you the the best NFL stories, stats, videos and podcasts from the only nation that is all football all the time

By Tom Pollin

First reported by Mike Mulligan on 670 The Score in Chicago, in a move that no one saw coming, Jerry Angelo was fired today as general manager of the Chicago Bears on Tuesday, three days following the season ending victory against the Minnesota Vikings. The Bears finished with an 8-8 after compiling a 7-3 record before Jay Cutler’s broken thumb led to a five game losing streak to drop them from playoff contention.
 
A press release from the Bears announced that President and CEO Ted Phillips informed Angelo that he would not be returning as the teams’ general manager for the 2012 season. Reports say that the staff at Halas Hall, the Bears’ headquarters in Lake Forest, Illinois, was shocked at the news.

Jerry Angelo has been the Bears’ General Manager since 2001. Prior to joining the Bears he spent 14 years as Director of Player Personnel for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The team’s record with Angelo as General Manager was 95-81. His teams won 4 division titles, made 2 NFC Championship game appearances and a Super Bowl appearance following the 2006 season where they lost to the Indianapolis Colts 29-17.
 
Chairman of the Board George McCaskey is believed to have been the influence behind this decision. He was announced as the new Chairman of the Board for the Bears in April of 2010 in place of his brother Michael McCaskey, and took control of the team in May 2011. Both are the sons of George Halas granddaughter and current Bears owner Virginia McCaskey.
 
In an interview not long after assuming control McCaskey said, "The Bears have more wins than any other team in NFL history. But we do not have more championships than any other team. Our goal is to be tops in both categories, so when the defending Super Bowl champion is your archrival, your division rival, that is extra motivation.” The Bears have only made the playoffs once in the past five seasons. The Bears advanced to the NFC Conference Championship Game following the 2010 season but lost to the eventual World Champion Green Bay Packers.

The Bears will be having a news conference at 4pm CST to give more clarification on the situation. There currently isn’t an official announcement of who will be speaking and take questions at this press conference.

Rumors circulated in Chicago about a month ago about whether Angelo would retire at the end of the season. Angelo squashed those rumors quickly to say he and the team were moving forward with preparations for the 2012 season. At the conclusion of the season the main question with the front office and coaching staff was whether offensive coordinator Mike Martz would be back for the 2012 season. Now, a lot more is in play in the upper echelon of Bears’ management.

There have been constant criticisms of Angelo’s draft and free agent decisions over the course of his 11 year run as general manager and the critical evaluation of those decisions have strengthened as a result of the collapse of the Bears’ 2011 season after Jay Cutler broke his thumb during the team’s victory over the San Diego Chargers and the knee injury that Matt Forte suffered the following week against Oakland. The collapse exposed more about the lack of depth that exists on the team than was previously believed.

In all eras of football but even more so in the era of free agency and player movement roster depth is built through the draft. Taking a look at the teams in the playoffs this season and ones that are consistently at the top of the league, team stars and most starters are brought in through the draft. There are only 22 players still on the Bears’ roster in 82 Jerry Angelo draft picks. The 2011 season was the first where an offensive player drafted by Jerry Angelo, Matt Forte, made the Pro Bowl.
 
Brian Urlacher was already on the team and in place as the starting middle linebacker and Angelo was successful with drafting cornerback Charles Tillman and linebacker Lance Briggs in 2003 but there has been an inability to draft players who are capable of stepping in if any of them go down with injuries or, and this will be happening soon, their skills begin to erode a bit because of the time they’ve spent in the league. Julius Peppers was pursued aggressively and signed as a free agent due to the inability to draft and develop defensive linemen who could rush the passer successfully, which is a key aspect of Lovie Smith’s defensive philosophy.
 
The Bears were never able to draft a quarterback that could achieve long-term success with the team. He drafted Rex Grossman with the 22^nd overall pick in 2003, but that was after drafting first round defensive line failure, defensive end Michael Haynes 14^th (two places ahead of Troy Polamalu in that draft). Grossman spent his first couple of years with the team injured but came back with mixed success, sometimes in the same game. Kyle Orton was drafted in the fourth round of the 2005 draft and also has been up and down in his career. It took the trade in 2009 with the Broncos for Jay Cutler for the Bears to put a skilled player that could be considered a franchise quarterback in place at the position.
 
As good as the decision to pull the trigger on Cutler was the failure to put a better offensive line in front of Cutler and give him pro quality receivers to throw to has been a failure. He drafted Chris Williams as a left tackle out of Vanderbilt with their first round pick in 2008 but missed that he had a back problem in his senior year. When a healthy Williams wasn’t able to do the job at left tackle he ended up being moved to guard. Gabe Carimi was selected first out of Wisconsin in the 2011 draft but was moved to right tackle to start the season. With both projected to be the answer for the Bears at left tackle, these have to be considered failures even though both are good at the positions they ended up in. First round picks need to have more impact than either has provided.
 
Jerry Angelo gets credit for drafting Devin Hester in 2006 and seeing his potential as a kick returner. When it came time to re-sign Hester after his rookie contract Angelo tried to sell Hester’s ability to become a No. 1 wide receiver which hasn’t worked well. Angelo has also failed to bring in other quality receivers to complement his franchise quarterback. They signed Roy Williams, who has never lived up to his potential in his career and Sam Hurd ended up being arrested on federal drug charges. Angelo also took a firestorm of criticism for the Bears’ ability to investigate the backgrounds of potential free agent players after the Hurd arrest was announced.
 
There are a lot of questions that now arise from this action. The Chicago Bears’ website mentions that, “Lovie Smith will remain as head coach and will continue to evaluate his coaching staff.” Lovie Smith signed a contract extension in February through the 2013 season. This is the current word from the Bears but will a top candidate be willing to come to Chicago if that person can’t name their own head coach? The Bears also have the Matt Forte contract situation that has to be decided and the free agent period begins in March so someone needs to be brought in as soon as possible.
 
The answers to many of the questions about the Bears’ situation going forward likely won’t come today but will develop over the course of the next month. Whichever direction these decisions take it will make for a very lively post-season in Chicago.

Announced just before publication of this article, Mike Martz has resigned as offensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears over philosophical differences. The dominoes may just have started to fall at Halas Hall.

---