Bears Blitz

Published by Alexander Crowe on January 8, 2013
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

This cross country search for a head coach in Chicago has gone on long enough. 

The Chicago Bears recently let their long time head coach Lovie Smith go after nine seasons with the Bears and have thus begun the long interview process that follows the firing of any coach in the NFL. Phil Emery, the GM of the Bears, wants to make sure that he makes the right choice in hiring the new head coach because he realizes that this is the move that will define his career in Chicago, as he has only been there for one season.

Emery knows that if he end up picking a flop coach and Smith has success somewhere else in the league, his job is as good as gone and most other teams aren’t going to take a chance on him after that. With that understanding, it makes sense that Emery wants to take his time in finding the next person who will lead the Chicago Bears.

That being said, this whole thing needs to come to an end.

Emery has taken his time in his coaching search, deciding not to jump at one coach and sign them right away, such as the Kansas City Chiefs did when they singed Andy Reid. Emery has also decided to look everywhere for a coach—from Dave Toub, who has been with the Bears organization since January of 2004, to Marc Trestman, who coaches the Montreal Alouettes up in the Canadian Football League.

Today, news came out that Emery was going to interview Mike Singletary, formerly one of the most feared players in the NFL, who was with the Chicago Bears when they won the Super Bowl. Singletary had an amazing career with Chicago, and fans will never forget how he played with no regrets, leaving everything on the field for the Bears and helping them become one of the most dominant teams in NFL history.

Fans will also remember the other Singletary, however, and that is the reason that he should never be considered for the coaching position that Emery is currently seeking to fill.

Singletary’s time as a head coach was an absolute atrocity, filled with strange moments and disappointing seasons in San Francisco. 

We all remember that halftime speech in which Singletary dropped his pants (yes, everything came down with them) to illustrate how poorly the 49ers were playing in a divisional game versus the Seattle Seahawks.

He also blew up in the media after sending Vernon Davis home during a game, saying he would rather play with a 10–man lineup than use Davis, who had gotten a 15–yard penalty for slapping another player late in the game.

Singletary was fired after just two full seasons as head coach in San Francisco and also helped them start the 2010 season with five straight losses, their worst start since 1979.

He is currently an assistant with his former teammate Leslie Frazier in Minnesota, where he should remain. Singletary is a Bears legend and is always welcomed in Chicago, just not as a head coach.

It’s been made clear by Emery and the candidates he has interviewed that the Bears are going in the offensive direction, making a complete switch from the coaching style of Lovie Smith. If that is the case, then nobody is quite sure why Singletary is even getting an interview with the Bears.

Emery has run an extensive interview search and has flown all over the country looking for the next great coach in Chicago. He has looked far and wide, and Bears fans for the most part seem to be grateful that Emery has taken his time in looking so extensively to find the right guy for the job.

With that in mind, it’s time to be done. Singletary has no business being the head coach in Chicago, whether he was a hall of fame linebacker for the organization or not. Emery is showing the fans that he’s just interviewing people to interview them now, and while he spends his time interviewing someone he knows will never work out in Chicago, candidates that would fit well with the Bears such as Mike McCoy or Bruce Arians are busy interviewing with other teams.

It’s time to end this interview process, put the past behind them and start fresh in Chicago with a new coach ringing in a new era for the Bears. Emery needs to pick his guy and begin accomplishing the two goals that Lovie Smith had when he came to Chicago but couldn’t quite seem to get them done: Beat Green Bay and win the Super Bowl.

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