The Bears are now looking for an offensive coordinator.

The Chicago Bears will hold a press conference tomorrow and announce that Lovie Smith is returning as the head coach in 2010.  According to the report from PFT, it is expected that Ron Turner will be fired as offensive coordinator and that Rod Marinelli will assume the defensive play-calling duties.  

Talk around the league is that Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo have slammed the vault door and begun their evaluation of the 2009 Chicago Bears.  To understand the disaster that was this deceptively terrible 7-9 campaign, one needs only look to five distinct plays.

#2 Cutler’s Final Interception in San Francisco

As the NFL moves into the postseason and the Bears pack up their lockers, I’m battling the flu. So I’ll have a year-end column up tomorrow or as soon as there’s an announcement from Halas Hall.  

I had a dream last night. (I have one every night, I think, but this one’s pertinent to the site.)  In the dream I was meeting some friends at a bar in Hoboken, New Jersey and when I looked at the television the Bears were playing the Lions.  I didn’t know the game was on.  I can’t remember the last time, maybe elementary school, I didn’t know a Bears game was on.  That’s the sadness of ending these kinds of years.

I’ve heard it a million times since Monday night.  “This could be the win that saves Lovie Smith’s job in Chicago.”  Read it in both major papers.  Listened to Adam Schefter say it on ESPN this morning.  Now I’d just like someone to explain this to me: why?

If anyone was redeemed Monday night, it was Ron Turner.  Turner’s offense lit up the scoreboard against a pretty good and definitely hungry defense.  His play-calling kept head-coach-in-waiting Leslie Frazier on his heels all evening, especially down around the goalline.  For the first time all season, the Bears received dynamic offensive line play and subsequently looked like a dynamic offense.  Schefter said that Lovie will likely be retained “while changes are made on the offensive coaching staff.”  If Monday night was any part of the reason, then Turner should be promoted to General Manager.

Lovie Smith’s defense, the defense he is now entirely responsible for, allowed thirty points in the second half.  If the Bears had lost this game they could have easily lost, fans would have woken up Tuesday morning with a lit torch in their hands.  The Bears defense showed the same flaws they’ve shown all season: soft on third-and-longs, lack of pressure for the duration of the second half and failure to adapt to basic offensive calls. 

If the Bears make the decision to retain Lovie Smith, a decision that has now been forced onto the lap of Virginia McCaskey (believe that and I’ll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge), don’t try to sell the fans on the meaning of two meaningless games at the end of a lost season.  Tell us it’s about the money.  Or tell us it’s about the faith you have in the man in charge.  But there is one word that can not be used when announcing the decision…

Results.

David Haugh believes it is time now for the Chicago Bears, namely Virginia McCaskey, to address the status of head coach Lovie Smith.  And while he’s wrong – the time was three weeks ago – the point he raises is a valid one:

Pressed at his news conference on the day after the biggest win of the
season, Smith grew testy when asked about the only issue that matters:
his job status. He replied awkwardly that his only focus is on the
Lions.

Nobody bought it.

If Smith is only focused on a
meaningless game against the Lions with his career hanging in the
balance, then he is even more oblivious than his worst critics charge.
Consistently sending a coach out to answer questions he can’t fully
answer reflects poorly on the organization. Why not address it head-on?

Someone must come out publicly and state that Sunday’s game in Detroit means nothing to the future of the head coach.  How could it?  If beating the Lions solidified you as a viable head coach, I’m sure pretty sure that I could be a viable head coach.  If the Bears are planning to retain Lovie Smith, tell the world now.  Relieve the pressure on the guy.  Have a heart. 

Perhaps the defeaning silence Halas Hall means that’s not the case.

Quick thoughts because the hotel has a computer time limit and there’s a greasy kid behind me itching to update his Facebook status.

• Never been prouder to be a Bears fan than last night.  In what was essentially a meaningless game, played in frigid cold, the place was packed and loud.  People cared in that building and they cared a lot.  Makes me think doing this is worth it sometimes.
• Player of the Game: Chris Williams.  He got some help with chips but he outplayed Jared Allen all night long.  If that’s all we learned yesterday, that’s fine by me.
• I agree with what’s being written in Chicago this morning.  This game in no way validates Lovie Smith.  His defense gave up thirty points in a half last night.  Have our standards really dropped that low?  It does – I hope – help Ron Turner go out on a high note.  Always liked the game, while not his play calls, and this was his signature win.
• D.A., Knox, Hester and Bennett can be a receiving corps if the club finds a way to bring Anquan Boldin here.
• Hi, Tommie Harris.  Good to see you again.
• I don’t know how it looked on television but Olin Kreutz was manhandled by Jimmy Kennedy inside the ballpark.  And that’s Jimmy Kennedy we’re talking about.
• You know who gets a pass?  Robbie Gould.  Did you see how awful Ryan Longwell was on kickoffs?  Gould outkicked him by at least an average of ten yards.
• You can’t be great and fumble as much as Adrian Peterson.
• Two guys I’ll be sad to see play in another uniform: Alex Brown and Desmond Clark.
• If the Bears were smart, they’d add a big safety this offseason and let Craig Steltz start next to him.  With the right coaching, he could be a breakout star in 2010.
• Tip your cap to Favre and Rice on the fourth down score.  Brilliant pitch and catch.
• Final thought: signature win of the 2009 season and surely something to build on for Cutler, D.A., Chris Williams, Greg Olsen and a few guys on the other side of the ball.  It should not save the coach’s job.  But it should make this roster a bit more appetizing to a new coach. 

I’m flying to Chicago tomorrow morning so the site will be all yours until Monday.  Once again, I wanna invite everybody to join me for a drink at Rossi’s on North State Sunday.  I’ll be there from about three o’clock on and wearing a traditional Irish cap.

Haugh: Kreutz Should Go   
David makes a compelling and I think correct argument for the Bears unloading Olin Kreutz at the end of the season.  Kreutz has declined exponentially over the past three seasons and his three million dollar price tag is simply too expensive.  If Josh Beekman is the future at the position, the future may begin in 2010.  There was one very interesting tidbit in the piece:

During the Bears’ Dec. 13 loss to the Packers, for example, Kreutz was
yelling demonstratively at his quarterback on the way off the field
after one series. According to a sideline witness, Cutler responded in
a way teammates typically do not with Kreutz.

“Why don’t you worry about blocking?” Cutler was overheard shouting back.

Makes me like Cutler even more.

Mike Heimerdinger?
What a strange and interesting column by Neil Hayes in the Sun-Times, attempting to peddle Titans offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger as the next head coach of the Chicago Bears.  Heimerdinger is a Dekalb native, which might interest the McCaskey family, but I’m just not sure that it will settle the nerves of fans who fear a tremendous amount of organizational instability.  This hire needs to be a man who instills ferocity in his players and projects tremendous control.  With Shanny looking Washington-bound, that guy might just be Bill Cowher.

The New Wanny
Bob LeGere makes the comparison I’ve been making for weeks: Lovie Smith is Dave Wannstedt.  This quote is the most definitive:

“As I look at our eight losses, three of them were legitimate losses,”
Smith said. “The other five we were right in there, had opportunities.
So to say that we’re that far away (from being a playoff team), I
wouldn’t necessarily say that.”