Bears brass could learn plenty from Patriots
Maybe you noticed that the Bears won't be playing in this year's Super Bowl.
And that New England will be for the fifth time in 11 seasons. The Patriots will be going for their fourth championship over that time.
Keep that in mind as the Bears wind down the search for a general manager, widely speculated to be somebody named Phil Emery.
Since beating the Patriots in Super Bowl XX, the Bears have played in the title game once more and lost.
Like everyone else in the NFL, the Bears have been chasing the Patriots this century, so it's interesting to explore the primary difference between the two franchises.
You know how you always hear that everything starts at the top? Well, everything starts at the top in this comparison.
That was the suspicion all the way back when the Pats recorded their first Super Bowl victory after the 2001 season.
New England owner Robert Kraft had gone out and hired Bill Belichick a year earlier to start what has become a remarkably successful run.
Belichick had agreed to coach the Jets. However, at his introductory news conference he announced he was resigning a job he essentially held for one day, if at all.
Kraft wanted Belichick. He pursued him. He swooped in. He nabbed him. He compensated the Jets with a first-round draft choice. He endured criticism for the hire.
Can you imagine Bears' ownership being able to identify the right man for a job like that, much less aggressively going out and getting him?
Me neither.
An article on nesn.com — NESN is the New England Sports Network — over the weekend explained how much of a gamble Kraft took.
Belichick was such an unpopular figure while failing as Cleveland's head coach that even national TV networks reportedly cautioned Kraft against hiring him.
But Kraft knew Belichick as a Patriots assistant under Bill Parcells and recalls now that “what I learned is that guy really knew the game.”
Do you trust the folks up at Halas Hall to identify genius and be bold enough to steal it out from under a rival?
Me neither.
Myriad intelligent businessmen have been unable to translate their business savvy into the business of sports.
Kraft is the exception. The move on Belichick was an extension of others he made in his professional career.
According to nesn.com, Kraft's bankers hated that, nearly a decade before he bought the Patriots in 1994, he took out a 10-year lease on the parking lots around Foxboro Stadium for $1 million per year. Then he bought the stadium in 1988, again against the advice of bankers.
Can you imagine the McCaskeys following their instincts like that, or even having instincts like that?
Me neither.
“The key to life,” Kraft was quoted over the weekend as saying, “whether it's the partner you pick in marriage or the business you run, is to try to see things that other people can't see.”
Kraft noted that that particular quality is invaluable in the NFL because the system is set up for everybody to finish 8-8.
“How do you differentiate?” Kraft said. “Everyone in the organization, you hope can see things that other people can't see and are willing to take risks.”
Do you think that seeing things others can't see and taking risks comprise the Bears' philosophy under the McCaskey family?
Me neither.
No wonder the Patriots keep qualifying for the Super Bowl and the Bears don't.