Who Do You Blame For The Bears Problems?

The McCaskey Family
I was having a discussion about this with my dad. He blames the McCaskey family, the owners of the Bears. He blames their cheapness and lack of knowledge for the problems of this team. His argument is that the owners are the ones who determine the front office. They are the ones who hired Ted Thompson the Bears CEO/President and Jerry Angelo as GM. Thompson was an accountant that worked for the organization that the McCaskey's promoted to run the organization. They also were the ones who hired Jerry Angelo. Angelo was a former football player who had little to no experience being a general manager, but who was also within the organization and again, also cheap. He points to guys like Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder who "would never let this happen". Obviously Jones and Snyder have HUGE problems, but I think it's the idea more than the actual example that you should focus on. He also points to their cheapness for hiring guys like Ron Turner and the scouting department.

However, I don't totally but this argument completely. Certainly, there is a problem with all sports that hire former players to run their organization. Teams are more likely to hire a Kenny Williams than a Theo Epstein because of the "experience". Obviously, it's frustrating when a team does this, but I don't know that I'd put the blame on them. Next, I'm not 100% convinced that it's because of the McCaskey's cheapness that we have a poor coaching staff and scouting department. You can be cheap and still have a functional team- as long as you have smart people around you. But are we going to completely take the blame off the people you hire? Maybe hiring Angelo and Smith and Turner was dumb, but are they completely off the hook? If you're bad at your job, then you should be held responsible for your poor performance- and not pass the blame off.

Jerry Angelo
The guy gave huge contracts to an injury prone and on the decline Brian Urlacher and Tommie Harris. The guys went out and got a Orlando Pace in order to "improve" the offensive line. And in the draft, the guy ultimately making the decisions on who to draft is the GM. And since Angelo has been here, we have made some awful awful AWFUL draft choices. You can make the argument that a lot of the people on the field are because of the GM.

However, I believe a lot of the players Angelo gets is not his decision. Bringing in guys like Adam Archelta and Orlando Pace were mainly because Lovie Smith knew them during his stint in St. Louis. It seems to me that Lovie has his system and he tells the GM who to go out and get for his specific system. Sure the GM is the official guy who goes and signs players, but with Angelo, it seems that Lovie has this job more than the guy who has the title. And Aneglo did go out and get Jay Cutler, who is just amazing.

Lovie Smith
You can read the paragraph above as well as a previous post I wrote, chronically my hate of Lovie Smith.

To play devil's advocate, you can say that Smith does have a good system and proven in 2006, but the players on the field are just god awful. And the players on the field are the result of the GM.

The Players Themselves/ Jay Cutler
1) There are arguments of why Cutler is the reason for why this team is bad, but those arguments are flat out wrong. 2) If we're going to hold the coaching staff responsible, then we should hold the players responsible for going out on the field and being and at their job as well