Now we look at the candidates who were previously not on ECD’s list and have received official requests from the Bears for interviews.
For parts one and two, you can click on the following links.
Part 1 - First Time Head Coach Candidates
Part 2 - Retreads, College Prospects, Hell-no List, and Ben Johnson
Since Black Monday officially began we’ve seen a slew of requests and names being associated with the Chicago Bears. So far the following names that I’ve covered previously are as follows.
*Dallas Cowboys denied the Bears’ request to interview Mike McCarthy while he still has one week left on his contract.
**Thomas Brown is the interim head coach and will receive a formal interview.
Naturally, there was a handful of names that I did not think would be included in the Bears’ 2025 search. As GM Ryan Poles promised in his presser, there were — and shall be more — surprises while requests continue to be put out. He even suggested that a trade for a head coach is on the table as one possible course of action.
Let’s kick part three off with the names of which have been confirmed to be on the Bears’ list for interviews.
If you had mentioned this possibility for the Bears in 2022, I would have been pretty excited. Since then, his star has truly faded, and I initially said, “Is this actually happening?” when his name was revealed by various national insiders. You could also say none of the hardships experienced during his time in New Jersey (the Giants aren’t actually in New York) were entirely his fault.
For Mike Kafka, his connections to the Bears and the city of Chicago are almost as straightforward as you can imagine for any candidate set to interview with the massive search team at Halas Hall.
The former St. Rita and Northwestern graduate was also born in Chicago himself and would go on to play in the NFL as a quarterback for seven different teams — Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Minnesota Vikings, Tennessee Titans, Cincinnati Bengals — before heading into the world of coaching in 2016. He returned to his alma mater as a graduate assistant for one season.
In 2017, we’d see Andy Reid, who coached Mike Kafka while in Philly, hire the Chicago native as a quality control coach for the Kansas City Chiefs. He’d quickly get promoted to quarterbacks coach and then passing game coordinator before joining forces with Brian Daboll as offensive coordinator for the New York Giants. Everything looked promising in 2022 as the Giants cruised to a 9-7-1 finish,...