Windy City Gridiron
As of last night, the Chicago Bears have officially interviewed nine candidates for the vacant head coach position. There is another meeting with a candidate reported to have informally taken place but not announced by the team, and there are at least eight other candidates requested per various reports.
The lengthy list has been a hot topic with fans, and the media has had a field day with it as well.
I get the annoyance many have with the list, but there are specific rules in place for how and whom NFL teams can interview. Many “name” candidates coached games over the weekend, so they weren’t allowed to meet with teams last week anyway.
Some names on Chicago’s list make no realistic sense, but this is the one time the Bears have to meet and compile a dossier on prospective coaches. Much like they do with the hundreds of draft prospects they meet with, they’ll cram in some extra coaching interviews into these few weeks. And who knows, in a few years, the Bears may be in the market for a new coordinator, and Mike Kafka or Vance Joseph could be in the market for a new team.
From a fan perspective, the size of the Bears candidate list doesn’t bother me because if it were too few, people would complain. But now it’s too big, so people complain. There is no magic number that they could have picked for interviewees, which would have meant zero complaints.
There would be criticism regardless about the Bears’ process because, with only one winning season since Love Smith was fired and them looking for a fifth head coach since 2012, this franchise gets zero benefits of the doubt.
So whether they meet with 10, 20, or 30 candidates, just getting the head coaching hire right is all that matters, and we won’t know that for a while.
