The only logic in keeping Dave Wannstedt is it beats the alternative. The coach of the NFL’s most unstable, least-talented team is staying because owner Mike McCaskey doesn’t need even more instability.
There is not much on Wannstedt’s resume to endorse this, so it is a tacit admission that this mess is mainly the fault of McCaskey’s organizational structure.
Changing coaches now would only perpetuate the front-office lurching that has left the Bears at the bottom of a barrel of laughs. Lately, not even winning looks good, neither to sore eyes nor to draft prospects.
McCaskey’s three-headed system of checks and balances among coaching, personnel and finance has functioned like most committees might be expected to function in running a pro football team:
– All in favor of running out the clock, say aye.
– Do the minutes of the last meeting mention anything about a long snapper?
– Should we spend a second-round draft choice on a punter? Didn’t we just spend a third-round choice on a punter? Yes, but that was the old regime.
If a new coach came to the Bears, wouldn’t you be scared to death he would browbeat new personnel man Mark Hatley into drafting a punter with that No. 1 pick?
Almost nothing has turned out right for Wannstedt in his five years here. And Wannstedt accepts his share of the blame. But McCaskey has so much trouble separating the cart from the horse in his structure that a coaching change would plunge this team deeper into the mire, which only coincidentally rhymes with Mirer.
When Wannstedt arrived, he won an argument with personnel man Bill Tobin by drafting Curtis Conway over O.J. McDuffie. Tobin soon got the hint and got out. Tobin’s successor, Rod Graves, took the hint and deferred to Wannstedt’s penchant for speed, thinking undersized John Thierry could be a linebacker if not a lineman. Is he either?
Then McCaskey told Graves to assert more authority, but nothing Graves or Wannstedt said could undo the salary-cap decision to let top receiver Jeff Graham go, a decision made a year earlier with the unnecessary acquisition of a limited player such as Michael Timpson.
Then McCaskey said he would restructure his personnel department and add more scouts, but Graves was a lame duck when he was evaluating Rick Mirer with Wannstedt. Why hire the new personnel man after giving away your top draft pick for a quarterback the new personnel man might never have pursued?
So unless Hatley is making the call on a new coach, what sense would it make to bring in somebody else on the off-chance he might fit in with the group?
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For once, the chain of command seems a bit clearer. It has not been indisputable since Jim Finks left as general manager in 1983. Neither Hatley nor Wannstedt, for example, seem to have the authority to tell finance vice president Ted Phillips to get free agents such as Jim Flanigan or Barry Minter signed before it’s too late.
Wannstedt now joins a very select group of NFL coaches who have survived five seasons with a losing record. Is he Chuck Noll or Wayne Fontes? Tom Landry or Monte Clark?
He becomes only the 14th coach in NFL history to get a sixth year despite a sub-.500 record. Nine of the previous 13 never reached .500 no matter how long they stayed. Only Philadelphia’s Greasy Neale, Pittsburgh’s Noll, Dallas’ Landry and the New York Jets’ Weeb Ewbank survived five years of losing and lived to gloat about it. All eventually won championships.
By all conventional wisdom, Wannstedt should be gone. But McCaskey’s legacy so far is one mainly of attrition. Since McCaskey took over 15 years ago, Finks has left, successor Jerry Vainisi was fired, Mike Ditka was fired, first-round draft picks Willie Gault, Wilber Marshall, Jim McMahon and Trace Armstrong were traded and never properly replaced. McCaskey even fired a trainer, Fred Caito, as if all the injuries were somehow his fault.
None of the defections or firings have seemed to improve the product. Maybe keeping Wannstedt, a very unpopular decision, will change the direction. After all, there’s not much room left to go anywhere but up.