The Chicago Bears met their drawn out demise at the hands of the New Orleans Saints less than two weeks ago. Yet, heading into conference championship weekend, the dread feels existential. This isn’t a new feeling.
When Ted Phillips failed upward into a promotion to his current position as Bears CEO, any situation that saw him possessing the gig twenty-two years later likely included sustained success, playoff prominence, and maybe a Super Bowl ring to show for it.
Twenty-two years later and the cries for the departure of Phillips grow louder than ever.
Six playoff appearances, one trip to the big game, and no bling. Some might call that a failure. Most would call it that. However, the Bears and Team Chairman George McCaskey praised Phillips for outstanding leadership.
Ted’s Trophy Case
With twenty-two seasons of Bears football under the belt for Phillips, let’s take a quick gander at the numbers and let those paint the picture.
24
Since Phillips earned the promotion in February 1999, twenty-four quarterbacks have received the starting nod under center. Nick Foles is the most recent to add his name to the list, and suddenly, the infamous photo of the Cleveland Browns jersey with names of starting QBs added for comedic effect isn’t as funny anymore.
15
In fifteen of the twenty-two seasons with Ted Phillips at the helm, Chicago has finished 8-8 or below. 2018’s short-lived postseason run following a 12-4 regular season in Matt Nagy’s first year as an NFL head coach felt like the tide turned. Fooling the fanbase with false hope once again, two consecutive 8-8 finishes and another first round playoff exit told us everything we needed to know about this regime’s potential.
10
In ten of the aforementioned fifteen seasons, the Bears failed to reach eight victories.
6
Just six of twenty-two attempts yielded a postseason berth. In four of those six appearances, the Bears failed to survive the first game.
5
Obviously benefitting from excellence at the quarterback position for nearly three decades thanks to Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, the Packers reign supreme in the NFC North. That’s the nature of the beast. Sometimes the other team is just better than you. Five represents the amount of NFC North championships for Ted Phillips’ Bears.
3
Hinted toward a moment ago, the six postseason appearances have yielded a whopping three playoff wins.
1
2006’s run to the Super Bowl accounts for two of the three playoff victories Phillips has enjoyed while running the show. One Super Bowl appearance in twenty-two years without significant change at the top isn’t acceptable for any team.
0
No bling. Devin Hester’s opening kickoff return touchdown in Super Bowl XLI filled the hearts of Bears fans with optimism and jubilation, but that was the extent of elation. Rex Grossman’s inability to push the ball downfield extinguished any hope of a La Salle St. ticker tape parade.
Sticking to the Status Quo
That brings us back to the organizational embarrassment that took place upon the dismal ending to the 2020 season.
After an anxiety-filled forty-eight hours of uncertainty pertaining to the future of the coaching staff and management, the Bears finally set the press schedule for the Wednesday three days removed from the stinging disappointment in New Orleans. Team Chairman George McCaskey and CEO Ted Phillips would meet with the media over Zoom at 10 am. Then it was General Manager Ryan Pace’s and Head Coach Matt Nagy’s turn.
McCaskey displayed a certain amount of resentment for how the season unfolded, but Phillips seemed uninterested in providing true feedback.
“I want to take a moment to tell Bears fans, we understand your frustration. We’re frustrated, too and it would be a perfectly natural reaction to say back up the truck, major overhaul, whatever you want to call it. After one particularly dispiriting loss this season, a season ticket holder sent me an e-mail that read, “Fire somebody. We deserve better.” I get it. You deserve your Bears being winners.”
George McCaskey, on growing frustration throughout an impatient fan base
Frustration was a common theme during the press conference. McCaskey was champing at the bit to tell us how frustrated he was in an attempt to associate with the fan base. His actions, or lack thereof, proved otherwise.
Then Phillips changed the atmosphere from “rudimentary” to “utter shock rooted in pure ineptitude”.
“When you sit back and you look at what makes a successful organization besides wins and losses, it’s the people that you have. It’s whether or not they can put their egos down. It’s whether or not they can look at situations, self-reflect, admit to their mistakes and try to find learnings from not just their mistakes but their successes that they have had and build off of those. Has it happened as fast as we’d like it to? No, it hasn’t. That’s why we’re sitting here now saying, we do trust Ryan and Matt, but we need to see improvement.”
Ted Phillips, on the somewhat apparent lack of urgency in righting the ship.
Ted Phillips confirming that football isn’t about the championships but the friends we made along the way was the truest form of the icing on top. The stunning admission that Chicago’s process wasn’t based on wins and losses, but based literally anywhere else displayed every reason this franchise is where it is today.
But wait, there’s more!
And then the CEO of nothing but disaster stepped in it again.
“Have we gotten the quarterback situation completely right? No. Have we won enough games? No. Everything else is there and so whenever you make a decision, in my opinion, there’s lots of ripple effects throughout other parts of the building, too, and other people’s careers. And we have a solid football foundation. We have a solid football culture.”
Ted Phillips, on where he believes the Bears currently stand in a league passing them by.
Arguably the most cowardly line from the morning, this proved everything we knew before it all began: Ted Phillips doesn’t care enough to really understand what’s going on around him.
Where’s this “solid football foundation”? Six consecutive losses regardless of record otherwise sure doesn’t seem like something that would happen in a place with a solid football foundation. Solid football foundations create winners, and although the Bears were fortunate enough to back into a playoff spot, these Chicago Bears: Ted Phillips’ Chicago Bears; George McCaskey’s Chicago Bears; Ryan Pace’s Chicago Bears; Matt Nagy’s Chicago Bears… were nothing close to resembling winners.
Bring Me Pace & Bring Me Wine
Once Ted Phillips’ screen time gracefully ended, it was Ryan Pace’s moment under the spotlight. In terms of pure entertainment value, what followed did not disappoint. Yet for Bears fans, it provided nothing but disappointment.
“I think our process is always the same and is always getting refined as we go forward. I think sometimes it is, it can be a little bit different in what avenue you’re acquiring the player.”
Ryan Pace, on the process that led to two consecutive 8-8 finishes.
It’s an insult to your intelligence when the person running your favorite football team blurts verbal garbage like this response. That’s three different answers balled into one, and it’s not particularly difficult to dissect. Either the “process is always the same”, OR it’s “always getting refined”, OR it’s “a little bit different”. Being all three at once is impossible, so which is it?
Stop, Collaborate. They’re Not Listening
And in the press conference best described as the Oprah Winfrey Show of canned answers (because everybody got one), one stood out in particular to WGN’s Pat Tomasulo:
I Thought You Played to Win The Game
Somehow in this embarrassing season, the press conference to wrap it up felt like its defining moment.
The last thing this organization can afford after only winning three playoff games in twenty-two years (just under Phillips, but twenty-six years total) is an apathetic fan base due to ownership’s negligence to improve at every possible opportunity. Yielding the same result for the second consecutive season after a promise to grow closer to the 2018 season that injected hope and joy into a fandom starved for success somehow didn’t fit the narrative or grounds for the overhaul mentioned by Ted Phillips on the Wednesday morning Zoom.
Instead, Phillips’ refusal to wipe the slate clean confirmed our suspicions: maybe it’s time to let a “football guy” take control. But our worst nightmares couldn’t have possibly conceived the notion of the CEO sitting before the media and fans telling everybody that it doesn’t boil down to wins and losses almost immediately after the team chairman expressed mild frustration that the team was underperforming and not winning enough games. Even once the shock wore off, the pain still lingered; the pain of the slap in the face to anybody that purchased a jersey, a ticket, or an overpriced beer, or lost a drop of sweat during a fourth quarter on a Sunday with overwhelming angst. The organization that fans chose to support financially and emotionally didn’t feel the need to reciprocate that love with an effort toward the ultimate goal of winning football games.
Apathy vs. Anger
This is what it’s all about: Apathy is a death sentence for ownership groups. Anger is palatable. Apathy is unaffordable. When attendance numbers dip, when road support vanishes, George McCaskey won’t have anybody other than himself to blame for his refusal to act in a timely fashion. The writing was on the wall as early as late-2019, but 2020 amplified every issue that reigns supreme with the current regime.
Running it back for another half-hearted attempt at glory isn’t the pathway to success, especially if the QB situation remains unsolved, or if Allen Robinson truly departs in free agency. As the clamors intensify for the McCaskeys to sell the franchise that’s been in the family’s bloodline since the inception of the NFL, soon enough the barking fades, and the exhausted crowds disappear as the franchise once recognized as a cornerstone of the NFL dissipates into irrelevance.