Jim O’Donnell: Attainable answer to Bears’ scramble is Kliff Kingsbury 2.0
A FLAWED INTERVIEWING PROCESS by a flawed NFL franchise continues to play out in Lake Forest as the Bears' biff-Zoom-biff search for a new head coach plods on.
Eventually, as prime candidates circle, the total interviewed may top the sum of everyday people who couldn't find Christmas Eve afternoon parking at Hawthorn Mall in Vernon Hills.
It's a take-a-number process worthy of the most upscale fish store in Lake County. Extra clams for candidates who were actually flown into Chicagoland Executive Airport (formerly Palwaukee) for first-round interviews.
CHAIRMAN GEORGE MCCASKEY and search crew need a selectee who will:
--- At least mildly pump the mainstream faithful, maybe even resurrecting echoes of Lovie Smith; and,
--- Take the job.
Ben Johnson — the Detroit offensive coordinator — has all but been counted out by most credible NFL sharpies. Beyond trepidation about casting his lot with the beggars banquet at Halas Hall, he's also been the object of masterful recruiting by minority partner Tom Brady and the Las Vegas Raiders.
ALL OF THE WHINING about Brady's “conflict of interest” as a Fox/NFL analyst while serving as a point man for untethered LV principal Mark Davis is so much noise.
Any contact Brady needs to have with Johnson can be done through myriad back channels. There are new things out called the internet, texting and burner phones — even hollow-coin exchanges with messages hidden within underneath film noir lamp posts on foggy nights.
Brady doesn't need the booth and sweeping video blowtorch of Fox as he had Saturday night during the Lions-Commanders divisional match.
AND THE IDEA THAT BRADY IS EITHER pulling punches or adding topspin to his in-game comments on Johnson is parody-ready, right out of the schmock!-schmock! NFL viewers guide.
Somehow the feeling persists that the young whiz doesn't race home after games to tap on the DVR and hear what the seven-time Super Bowl champ had to say about his DET offensive management.
IF ANY SEMBLANCE OF LOGIC can be found in the prevailing illogic of the latest Bears' front-office folly, the team's next head coach should be Kliff Kingsbury.
He's the Washington OC who went up Saturday evening vs. Johnson, Dan Campbell and the Lions. He has touched brilliance this season while tailoring an offense to Jayden Daniels. The rookie QB has benefited from all of the coaching resourcefulness and personalization that was supposed to blanket Caleb Williams.
AS IS KNOWN TO ALL WHO CARE, Kingsbury spent the 2023 season as a senior offensive analyst at USC, working up close and personal with Williams.
In his sole previous head coaching stop in the NFL, Kingsbury finished 28-37-1 in four seasons with the Cardinals (2019-22). One year after receiving an extension from Michael Bidwill, he was ashcanned following a 4-13 mark in 2022.
BUT LOST IN THE NUMBERS is the fact that Kingsbury took quirky QB Kyler Murray and for the initial three campaigns, did nothing but move him on up. That rise peaked with an 11-6 record in 2021 and a loss to Sean McVay's Super Bowl-bound Rams in the Wild Card round.
In the end, even some detractors in Phoenix said Kingsbury was waylaid by too much decency and the belief that he could empower players. Too many of the freewheeling Cardinals — including the enigmatic Murray — took that new independence and deflated the ascent.
All of that suggests an inordinate hunger in Kingsbury. He's age 45 and in his career prime. A betting man would project that he will be a smarter HC the second time around, even among the minefield of challenges, politics and mighty wind currently known as the Chicago Bears.
MID-TERM NFL HISTORIANS WILL ALSO RECALL the tale of another rookie NFL head coach who had his ego handed to him during a five-year run with a dysfunctional franchise in Cleveland.
The apprentice was Bill Belichick. From 1991-95, his Browns finished 36-44 with one playoff appearance. His final edition also had to perform as lame ducks after arced-out owner Art Modell let it be known in midseason that his team was not staying in Cleveland.
THE CIVIC TOXICITY GREW to such an extent that during the final weeks of the 1995 campaign, Belichick had his Browns leaving their suburban Berea (OH) base on Tuesdays for select road games.
He was fired at season's end. The cultural core of those Browns became the 2000-01 championship Baltimore Ravens.
BELICHICK RETURNED to the regenerative cocoon of Bill Parcells, first with the Patriots (1996) and then the Jets (1997-99).
In 2000 — his confidence restored, more seasoned and even wiser — he took command in New England after one day as HC of the Jets.
Nine Super Bowls later, six Lombardi Trophies in hand, his coaching vitae statistically tops those of George Halas, Paul Brown, Chuck Noll, Don Shula, even Vince Lombardi himself.
In the lexicon of horse racing, that kind of jump-up is called, “second after a rest.”
TO SUGGEST KLIFF KINGSBURY with the Bears will match Bill Belichick's historic run in NE is courting folly.
But isn't that exactly what they've been doing at Halas Hall for close to 15 years now?
With more candidates this time around than even the most overpopulated Iowa presidential caucus?
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.