Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren speaks during a news conference earlier this month at Halas Hall in Lake Forest.
AP
WHEN A BUILDING IS ENGULFED IN MASSIVE, MENACING FLAMES, responding firefighters don’t stop to pick which rooms to save.
They try to contain the inferno.
The 2024 Chicago Bears are a multi-billion dollar sports entertainment corporation that — in a span of two incendiary months — have generated all the hope of a week-old funeral pyre.
Their burning hallways appears beyond containment.
THEY’RE ALSO A POINT OF CIVIC DIMINISHMENT and a McCaskey family-generated disgrace to the legacy of Papa Bear George Halas.
The fanboys, predictably, are playing their regular media-room parlor game about who should be the next head coach and whether GM Ryan Poles should be retained or poleaxed.
That’s a marvelous laptop pastime, like wondering if the nightly drones over New Jersey are an imminent threat or merely a promotional come-on for the state’s teetering tourist traffic.
ANY SUBSTANTIVE POSITIVE CHANGE to the Bears has to be high up the vertical, against conventional expectations and as swift as a first-half deficit.
The grand godsend would be a change away from the McCaskeys as controlling owners. As football overseers, they are overwhelmed golden spooners who apparently can’t imagine sustained success.
That heavenly bouquet isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.
So what radical change could be implemented to stem the flames and give fans some reason to look forward with glimmers of vigor and optimism?
TOPPING THE LIST IS THE DISMISSAL of Kevin Warren.
His 23-month turn as president and CEO has essentially been a disaster. In the history of the team, the only decision at that level that rivals his hiring for organizational diminishment was Michael McCaskey’s gratuitous firing of GM Jerry Vainisi in January 1987.
Vainisi’s departure essentially ended the focused forward feel of the Mike Ditka Super Bowl XX champions. It certainly charred Ditka to his flaming nostrils.
WARREN’S ENTRANCE, IN SHORT ORDER:
— 1) retarded what appeared to be an inexorable victory march to a new stadium-plus at Arlington Park; and,
— 2) gradually introduced steady waves of fear and divisiveness into the Bears front office.
THE IDEA THAT HE WILL HAVE significant input into who will be the next head coach of the Bears is scary. He had no more say into head coaches during his apprentice NFL executive turns with the St. Louis Rams (1997-2000) and the Detroit Lions (2001-03) than a receptionist.
As far as Warren’s time with the Vikings (2005-2019), Brad Childress — MIN’S HC from 2006-2010 — has stated that the primary people conducting his interviews were co-owners Zygi and Mark Wilf, VP of football ops Rob Brzezinski and Rick Spielman, then the team’s VP in charge of player personnel and later GM.
Childress said Bud Grant was eventually brought in to add gravitas and ask insightful questions. Warren was a solemn face at the conference table.
THE FOUR-PERSON DECISION TRIBUNAL of the Vikings remained intact for the hirings of Leslie Frazier (2010) and Mike Zimmer (2014). By the time of Kevin O’Connell’s elevation in 2022, Warren had skipped for his brief tenure as commissioner of the Big Ten (2020-23) and Spielman had been fired.
Warren is an impediment to the team’s forward progress on multiple fronts. The ruling McCaskey and Ryan families should cut their losses while the creaky wintertime window is open.
AS FOR WILLIAMS, TROY AIKMAN PROVIDED a fascinating tutorial on so much of what is wrong with the Bears during their listless 30-12 no-show at Minnesota on “Monday Night Football.”
Aikman emphasized how bad organizations can destroy very good young quarterbacks and how Williams clearly looked like a rookie QB whose confidence was being demolished.
THE ARGUMENT FOR TRADING HIM only grows more cogent when looking at the order of the 2025 NFL draft. If it were held today, the first two teams to select would be the Raiders and the Giants.
Both need quarterbacks. Both have additional draft capital next spring and into 2026 to deal. Either would get an enormous P.R. boost with the addition of a Caleb Williams.
The Bears would suddenly have a fresh window to build out from the offensive and defensive lines and then somewhere a season or two down the road bring in their signal-calling savior.
That would be a signal-calling savior who — however talented right now — isn’t risking his professional well-being on every snap.
IN THE INTERIM, THE NEXT HEAD COACH COULD live and die in ’25 with Tyson Bagent and one of those roving veteran QBs who become available every spring. What NFC-North irony if Sam Darnold is deemed expendable in the crowded quarterbacks room of Minnesota and winds up in Lake Forest.
For deepest students of the Bears’ eras of success, it can never be stated enough that in his nine Chicago drafts, the wizardly Jim Finks took offensive tackles with his No. 1 pick four times.
For a QB at his first draft, he took the unknown Bob Avellini five rounds after Walter Payton in 1975. Avellini started 45 games in the next four seasons, capped by the team’s first post-season appearance in 14 years at Dallas in December 1977.
IT WAS A FRESH START — shrewdly oriented toward a Super Bowl future — which is what the free-falling Bears of 2024 desperately need right now.
Ditching Warren is a must. Trading Williams introduces the words “daring” and “realistic” into the lexicon of Halas Hall in skyfire burnt orange and blue.
And could prove to be a masterstroke in quelling the football inferno down below.
Jim O’Donnell’s Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at [email protected]. All communications may be considered for publication.