Imrem: Let's hope Gase isn't the one that got away from the Bears

After firing Marc Trestman a year ago, the Chicago Bears should have hired the NFL's next great head coach.

The Dolphins think they did by hiring Adam Gase over the weekend.

Armando Salguero wrote in the Miami Herald that "a very high-ranking member of the (Dolphins') organization looked at me with a straight face and compared Gase with a young Bill Belichick."

How young? Gase is 37. Some Bears fans have older bar tabs, older Nehru jackets and older pieces of spinach between their teeth.

"You want to deal with young people who've got 'it,' " Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said. "You're looking for that guy with the 'it' factor who can make it happen. And I think this is that guy."

The Bears better hope not because Gase forever would be known as the one who got away after being the Bears' offensive coordinator during the 2015 season.

When the Bears hired the youthful Ryan Pace as general manager last year, they should have hired a youthful head coach to go with him.

Pace and Gase … the rhyme alone would have been worth the gamble.

Instead, the Bears balanced Pace with older head coach John Fox.

Now, as a lifelong Chicagoan, my assumption has to be that Gase will win a couple of Super Bowls in Miami before the Bears make the playoffs again.

Yes, those are the Chicago sports scars on my psyche talking.

Whatever another team (like even the pretty much dysfunctional Dolphins) does surely is better than what any team here (in this case the pretty much distressed Bears) tries to do.

Miami promised Gase authority over the 53-man roster, a huge concession to a first-time head coach.

Ross made a bold move. It might work. It might not. We'll see.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft made a bold move 15 years ago by stealing Belichick, who had agreed to coach the Jets.

Four Super Bowl victories later … Kraft's crafty work has worked.

A year before New England landed Belichick, the Bears fired Dave Wannstedt, botched hiring Dave McGinnis and settled for Dick Jauron.

Those names don't exactly resonate like Belichick's, do they?

The timing was right for the Bears to hire Belichick back then. It wasn't right for them to hire Gase right now with Fox entrenched here. But it was right last year.

Maybe the Bears went for Fox because they had been criticized so much for not hiring experienced head coaches.

Judging by everything being said about Adam Gase, however, he might be the ideal inexperienced head coach to be given a shot.

A year ago the Bears wouldn't have had to give Gase the power he'll have in Miami. With the right pitch from Pace, he likely would have been happy to be a mere NFL head coach.

We'll never know what would have happened, of course. Gase could have proved to be more crash than splash as Bears head coach.

All I know for sure is that elsewhere people dream about the best that might be and here I have nightmares about the worst that will be.

Like, Kris Bryant has peaked already. Kevin White never will play a down for the Bears. Jonathan Toews soon will leave hockey for a mountaintop in Tibet.

I can't think otherwise while also expecting Derrick Rose to be hurt again and Adam Gase to be the next Bill Belichick.

By the way, is anyone else around here concerned that Chris Sale will eat himself out of baseball?

mimrem@dailyherald.com