The song says that “Desperation shows its ugly face in many ways. No one can escape the times we live in.” In the end it’s always how we respond to the situations that we confront, sometimes every day, that separates men and women of character from the chaff. The Chicago Bears are no different, as Mark Potash at the Chicago Sun-Times points out:
“One local scribe said the Bears ‘didn’t act like men at the head of a regime in peril’ when they signed [Julius] Peppers, Chester Taylor and Brandon Manumaleuna. But of course they did. Only in absolute desperation would the Bears act as boldly and spend as freely as they did Friday. In fact, it wasn’t until they finally realized they were a regime in peril — more specifically that their status in that regime was in peril — that they moved as swiftly and as wildly as they ever have. The biggest news at Halas Hall on Friday was that the Bears finally got the memo.”
There’s little doubt Potash is largely right. In particular, virtually everyone acknowledges that head coach Lovie Smith has to go to the playoffs next year to save his job. But that can’t be the whole story. From the top down, there are several interesting aspects to these recent signings.
We can start with ownership who is shelling out a great deal of money in an effort to win now, something which as a fan I definitely appreciate. Yes, it helps that there isn’t a first or second round pick to sign but they still had to pay quarterback Jay Cutler, who essentially represents the last two first rounders. So there’s a lot of money being invested here on top of that. Let’s not forget that, desperate or not, GM Jerry Angelo still had to get permission from the McCaskey family to spend the money. He obviously did.
Make no mistake. The McCaskey family is also under pressure here. But it may not be the kind of pressure that people think.
The most obvious reason that they’d like to win now is because winning means more gross income. Let a franchise waste away in mediocrity too long and people lose interest. But let’s be honest. This is Chicago. The Bears are three years removed from a Super Bowl. Yeah, that seems like forever but the Bears are going to bring in fans from all over for a long time to come. I think they’ve got time to turn this thing around before the team really starts to feel it financially.
No, I think the McCaskey’s have stepped up to the plate because of a different kind of pressure and they’ve done it with the best of intentions. First, I think they’d like to win one more for family matriarch, Virginia. We all hope that Mrs. McCaskey has many years left with us and I’m sure she’s in excellent health. But no one could blame the family for trying extra hard to get another Super Bowl sooner rather than later. Rebuilding a franchise from the front office down takes time. Possibly too much time. Much better to make the extra sacrifices to allow the current regime to succeed. I also think that should they find it necessary to clean house next year, they’d genuinely like to be able to say that they gave the current front office and all of the employees in it all the support they could. No one would argue that now.
We can safely skip over team president Ted Phillips, who probably isn’t in a great deal of danger, to Angelo. Until last year, spending this kind of money on players that weren’t home grown was out of character for Angelo. He’s always been a draft-driven GM. But now Angelo’s job may be on the line and he’s definitely feeling the heat. Last year was a problem and, no matter how much they talk about being a team, there was definitely a split between he and Smith late in the season. Angelo told the team web site during a series of ill advised weekly interviews that he felt the team had the talent to win. With the season going down the tubes and with the possibility that one or both men might be fired, Angelo effectively pointed the finger straight at Smith. Smith for his part made it fairly clear in comments that he made that he felt there were missing pieces.
So the change in philosophy is probably for two reasons. 1) Angelo is trying to provide the talent to win and save both his job and Smith’s and 2) if they don’t win, he wants to be able to say that he provided the team with the best available talent so that he can set Smith up as the fall guy and save his own job.
Angelo did something similar, but on a much smaller scale, in 2003 when he traded down in the first round of the NFL draft so that he could take both his quarterback Rex Grossman and defensive end Michael Haynes. Had he just taken a QB of the future, then head coach Dick Jauron could have claimed that Angelo didn’t give him the help he needed to win immediately. But with Haynes on the roster, Angelo was able to shrug when the season was over and say, “Hey, I tried to help him the best I could. They just aren’t well-coached.” and he was allowed to fire Jauron.
This kind of finger pointing is really ugly. It’s all the worse because it might not work. This season is a bigger gamble with a lot more money involved and Smith was still Angelo’s hire. It’s much more likely that Angelo will go down with Smith if the 2010 season goes haywire.
Pressure can bring out both the best and the worst in people. Because of that it’s going to be especially interesting to see how people face the music next year.



