| And then there were three. After growing tired
of a hiring process considered by many to be unnecessarily tedious, former Philadelphia
Eagles director of football operations Tom Modrak told the Chicago Bears’ brain trust
he was no longer interested in the team’s vacant GM post.
Modrak, a savvy plugger on the NFL scouting scene who had been considered the odds-on
favorite for the position, opted to take a job in Buffalo under his old buddy Tom Donahoe,
the Bills’ new GM. Baltimore Ravens director of college scouting Phil Savage, another
candidate for the Bears’ GM post who was highly regarded by football people in the
know, withdrew his name from consideration four days earlier.
Which, according to Bears president Ted Phillips, leaves us with the following three
finalists:
 Tampa Bay
Buccaneers vice president of player personnel Jerry Angelo, an eager beaver with a
rock-solid reputation.
Ravens pro
personnel director James Harris, a much more subdued candidate with a sharp eye for talent
and a keen sense of the league’s omnipresent salary cap.
And last
— but certainly not least, considering he’s suddenly the new favorite for the
job, according to most Bears insiders — Denver Broncos collegiate scouting director
Ted Sundquist.
Sundquist, at age 39 the youngest remaining candidate, is believed to be the final
choice of Russell Reynolds Associates, the hoity-toity head-hunting firm that was hired by
Phillips to assist in making a decision that is going to either make or break one of the
NFL’s charter franchises.
Put simply, whoever ends up with this job better do it well.
Extremely well.
If he doesn’t, it’s quite possible the Bears will forevermore be considered a
helpless laughingstock — a sad transformation indeed for the franchise that produced
legendary Hall of Famers such as Walter Payton and Dick Butkus.
At the moment, nobody really knows what to make of the current regime headed by
Phillips, a straight shooter who did a great job nailing down the Bears’ new stadium
agreement but appears to be in way over his head when it comes to finding a seasoned
football guy to help save the franchise.
Want to know why I think Modrak, and Savage before him, really decided they would be
better-served steering clear of Chicago?
I think they took a hard, realistic look at the Bears’ infrastructure and decided
that there were way too many self-appointed chiefs and not enough Indians.
Interestingly, a lot of them have the same last name — McCaskey.
I think it was made clear to everyone who applied for the job that they would have to
willingly coexist with, and in some cases defer to, certain members of the McCaskey clan,
particularly Michael McCaskey, who continues to quietly make his presence significantly
felt behind the scenes as the Bears’ chairman of the board.
I also think Phillips is unwilling to remove himself from the football scene to the
extent he should, and that another front-office heavyweight, director of business
operations Jim Miller, is also looking to keep his power intact.
Having said all this, I think it’s also possible to succeed in the face of these
obstacles, provided the guy who gets the job is able to stay squarely focused on the task
at hand while putting up with the inevitable inner-office politics.
Angelo gets my vote. |
