Thread: How secure is Lovie's job if our season tanks?

Originally Posted by 4DaBERS

I understand, and I have heard this before from supporters of Lovie. Your premise is completely valid IF Lovie has had no he has had no say in personnel. I think your premise was absolutely accurate up until and through the 2006 season. However, after he got his post Super Bowl extension, his personnel say was much greater. To be honest, I think that's valid. If you coach a team to the Superbowl, you earned more say. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. So, to suggest that he should be applauded, or at least admired for "keeping us competitive...when he was given crap", completely ignores the fact that he played a substantial role in retaining "crap" with his year end player review with his staff and collecting new "crap" with his draft board review and scouting that he participated in, hand in hand with Jerry Angelo and the Scouting Department. Yes, it is the job of the GM and Scouting Department to scout new prospects, but ask yourself these questions if you doubt Lovie's participation (and his coordinators) in the scouting process:

Did Lovie attend every scouting combine over the last 9 years?
Yes, he has, and several prospects have been interviewed and discussed the lengthy conversations they had with "Coach Lovie" when interviewed in the team rooms.

Did Lovie ever attend any pro days?:
Yes, he has typically attended at least 3 or 4 every year and when he cannot, he sends his coordinators. J-Webb was "found" by Tice.

Does Lovie participate in constructing the Big board and is he present in the war room on draft day?
While I have never been in these meetings, it has been reported that this is the case.

Does Lovie attend the Senior Bowl?
I can't answer for every year, but I have taken note that he has been present at the both the Senior Bowl and East-West Shrine game from time to time.

Ironically, the O-Line that has been our nemesis for so many years was adequate when Lovie first took over (Tait, Brown, Kreutz, Garza, Miller), but after he attained greater personnel say in 2007 is when our O-Line began to be ignored and fell apart. Ironically, Rex Grossman had a better O-Line than Jay Cutler has had. It's not all on Angelo.

Attending pro days and the senior bowl & the combine is fine. But the personnel department tracks people year round, full time - in games. They are the experts IMHO, not Lovie Smith taking some time in the off season to watch the combine.

I'm not disputing anything you said here 4D. It may be all true that Lovie was the puppet-master and Jerry Angelo was the puppet. But make no mistake, there is a new guy in town - Emery - who is backed by another new guy, an agressive CEO - George McCaskey (whom I think is making changes that matter, like canning Angelo and bringing Emery into the fold).

Emery is not Angelo. Emery is no puppet to Lovie Smith. If Lovie DID have all this power under JA, it's just more evidence of how dysfunctional the Chicago Bears were under the Jerry Angelo regime.

I blame Jerry Angelo - the GM who was in charge when this mess was made. I blame Jerry Angelo 100%, because SOMEBODY has to be held accountable. I think this non-accountability, is a problem with our entire nation right now. Instead of "the buck stops here" and people being accountable, it's evolved into "well, blame somebody else because we don't want to be "mean" and blame poor old _______________" (just fill in the blank ...in this case Jerry Angelo).

No. I blame Jerry Angelo.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

Attending pro days and the senior bowl & the combine is fine. But the personnel department tracks people year round, full time - in games. They are the experts IMHO, not Lovie Smith taking some time in the off season to watch the combine.

I do not disagree my friend. The personnel department and scouting department do exactly as you say. However, the business side of football is not all that different from many types of businesses. The lower echelon people do the leg work and assemble reports to provide to the superiors; they give superiors briefings on the broad scale and they work together to pare down and grade the alternatives. Once the list is wittled down to a manageable number, the superiors often get involved (witness Lovie and JA both doing a modest level of scouting on their own) and they make the final decisions. Lovie has been on of the two people involved in making those final decisions. Just for the record, I do not disagree with that practice. He HAS BEEN the HEAD coach and in my opinion he SHOULD have say in his personnel. I just don't think he is good at it.

I'm not disputing anything you said here 4D. It may be all true that Lovie was the puppet-master and Jerry Angelo was the puppet. But make no mistake, there is a new guy in town - Emery - who is backed by another new guy, an agressive CEO - George McCaskey (whom I think is making changes that matter, like canning Angelo and bringing Emery into the fold).

I agree here as well, and just to be clear, I really don't think either Angelo or Lovie acted as a puppet master for the other. I think they were close and worked together on these decision, and more often than not, they probably agreed. I have never thought they worked separately, and they each said as much in the past regarding how well they worked together. That said, I agree with your take on George and our new GM and I hope the input from people that are inferior at doing that part of the job is past.

Emery is not Angelo. Emery is no puppet to Lovie Smith. If Lovie DID have all this power under JA, it's just more evidence of how dysfunctional the Chicago Bears were under the Jerry Angelo regime.

I blame Jerry Angelo - the GM who was in charge when this mess was made. I blame Jerry Angelo 100%, because SOMEBODY has to be held accountable. I think this non-accountability, is a problem with our entire nation right now. Instead of "the buck stops here" and people being accountable, it's evolved into "well, blame somebody else because we don't want to be "mean" and blame poor old _______________" (just fill in the blank ...in this case Jerry Angelo).

I agree with more of this than you know my friend, especially regarding the issues in our nation and someone always looking for someone else to blame. However, rather than looking for someone to be held 100% accountable, I prefer to look at who is actually responsible. If you just fire the person that is at the head of a problem, you may miss the problem that remains of those that provide that person with the bad information that caused poor decisions in the first place. Personally, I give Angelo 60% of the blame/credit for what happened here and I give Lovie 40%.

No. I blame Jerry Angelo.

Ultimately, I think you and I agree on most of these things and I see I enjoy the opportunity to discuss this with a rational person that doesn't take offense at every little think that we happen to disagree on. It's just my opinion that these two guys (Angelo and Lovie) worked so well and so closely for so long that neither of them dictated anything to each other. They worked together and for the most part (if you believe what they always said) usually agreed with each other. I agree that Personnel decision were ultimately Angelo's responsibility and he took the heat, but that doesn't remove the problem in it's entirety.

I believe it comes down to this: Will ownership and management accept another sacrificial lamb assistant coach to keep Lovie on? If they lose out I don't think they keep him, if they win one or two then it's a crapshoot.

Originally Posted by 4DaBERS

Ultimately, I think you and I agree on most of these things and I see I enjoy the opportunity to discuss this with a rational person that doesn't take offense at every little think that we happen to disagree on. It's just my opinion that these two guys (Angelo and Lovie) worked so well and so closely for so long that neither of them dictated anything to each other. They worked together and for the most part (if you believe what they always said) usually agreed with each other. I agree that Personnel decision were ultimately Angelo's responsibility and he took the heat, but that doesn't remove the problem in it's entirety.

Those are good points. I figure we'll never know for sure how things went down behind closed doors. And I try to forget the past and look forward to our future under Emery. Lovie needs some "tough love" from the GM, a reality check. Emery (hopefully) will be the person to do that. Certainly you want the GM and HC to work well together - and certainly the HC should have valued input.

But in the end, it's up to the GM to make the final call on draft decisions. Take input from the coach, but rely heavily on the professionals who spend the entire year grading the players - both the draft and looking over potential FA's. It's like depending upon your dentist to do the oral surgery - not his hygienist who cleans my teeth. Let the experts concentrate on their area of expertise. Lovie is challenged enough just trying to be a good HC. It took him years just to master throwing the challenge flag. Don't rely on the guy to grade out the draft after watching a senior bowl or combine. There's a lot more to it than that.

I'm wondering what happens if the team has a solid win against the Packers - not just winning, but looking solid doing it - and then we (should) beat the other remaining two teams on our schedule (Cardinals, Lions). If that happens we not only get to the playoffs with 11 wins, but it will make Lovie look good having pulled a team decimated with injuries, into the playoffs.

I'm not saying this will happen, I'm saying a Green Bay win like this may save Lovie's job without a playoff win.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

Those are good points. I figure we'll never know for sure how things went down behind closed doors. And I try to forget the past and look forward to our future under Emery. Lovie needs some "tough love" from the GM, a reality check. Emery (hopefully) will be the person to do that. Certainly you want the GM and HC to work well together - and certainly the HC should have valued input.

But in the end, it's up to the GM to make the final call on draft decisions. Take input from the coach, but rely heavily on the professionals who spend the entire year grading the players - both the draft and looking over potential FA's. It's like depending upon your dentist to do the oral surgery - not his hygienist who cleans my teeth. Let the experts concentrate on their area of expertise. Lovie is challenged enough just trying to be a good HC. It took him years just to master throwing the challenge flag. Don't rely on the guy to grade out the draft after watching a senior bowl or combine. There's a lot more to it than that.

LOL, I love it.