Imrem: Why not hire Fencik as Bears brass?

One statement of sanity came out of this week's Bears gibberish.

Club president Ted Phillips explained why the Bears hired Ernie Accorsi to help hire a new general manager this way: “You can never have enough expert football opinions.”

Bears' fans have had enough of Phillips making football decisions in concert with club chairman George McCaskey.

So how about going from McPhillips to McFencik?

Maybe the McCaskeys can persuade former Bears safety Gary Fencik to return to the game and to the Bears.

An article in the September issue of Fortune magazine was titled, “Gary Fencik: A ‘hit man' aims high.”

Fencik, an executive with private equity firm Adams Street Partners, was quoted as saying, “I still have fun, but nothing will ever replace the excitement of football.”

Why, then, shouldn't the McCaskey ownership offer Fencik whatever it would take — money, authority, a key to his own men's room — to bring him into Halas Hall?

The Bears are chasing the Packers, and Fencik's credentials rival, and perhaps surpass, those of Green Bay president Mark Murphy.

Like Fencik, Murphy played safety in the NFL. Like Fencik, Murphy graduated from a prestigious eastern university.

Murphy is a Colgate man who later was Northwestern's athletic director. Fencik is a Yale man who earned an MBA from Northwestern the same year he helped the Bears win Super Bowl XX.

Each of these achievers could have chosen a less hazardous occupation out of college but pursued a doctorate in football from the NFL.

Why did Gary Fencik initially opt for football over finance? Someone who knows him well once asked me, “Did you ever think that football is more who he is?”

If Fencik was nutty enough to play this nutty game at age 22, he just might be nutty enough to get back in with the nutty Bears at age 60.

Even decades after retiring as a player in 1987, Fencik could provide the Bears with the expert football opinions Phillips referred to.

The Bears could put Fencik in charge of both football and common sense, two areas lacking inside Halas Hall.

The Barrington native has lived in the world of football, the world of finance and the world of Chicago sports.

Fencik could be available whenever a McCaskey needs to ask someone, “What do you think?”

“Gary, you played against Elway and Montana and with McMahon, so what do you think of Cutler?”

“Gary, you played for Ditka and Ryan, so do you think a blustery town like Chicago needs blustery coaches?”

“Gary, do you think we should shove a sock into Brandon Marshall's mouth?”

Gary … Gary … Gary … what do you think?

The McCaskeys would have to respect the opinions of a hard-hitting champion who knows what Bears football looks like and have to trust a business executive who knows what a bottom line looks like.

A quick study, Fencik would need about 15 minutes to catch up to whatever he missed in the NFL the past couple of decades.

Fencik has the same football passion as Bears former players/current critics Doug Buffone, Ed O'Bradovich and Dan Hampton … except his passion comes with a business suit and academic polish.

So, yeah, Gary Fencik would look as good sitting next to George McCaskey in a Bears news conference as he did playing next to Dave Duerson in the Bears' secondary.

But maybe that makes too much sense for the Bears … too much common sense.