Rozner: Plummeting Bears have easy schedule on their side
By this time in 2014, Virginia McCaskey had already made up her mind about Phil Emery and Marc Trestman.
If that's not the case this time around with Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy, it could be a scary month for Bears fans waiting for smoke to flow from the chimney, and an announcement of some sort from George McCaskey and Ted Phillips.
There are four easy games coming up for the 5-6 Bears, though if the team plays like it did last week - when the players quit on Nagy - it probably doesn't matter what team they play and this five-game losing streak could be extended.
Nevertheless, they're still in the playoff picture and next up are the 4-7 Lions, a truly dreadful Detroit team that just fired its GM and head coach. A friendly reminder here that in the opener, only a dropped TD pass with 6 seconds remaining kept the Lions from beating the Bears.
After that, it's the 4-7 Texans, who just lost star wide receiver Will Fuller to a PEDs suspension.
The 5-6 Vikings have won four of their last five, but it's still Kirk Cousins at QB and if Dalvin Cook isn't completely healthy, Minnesota has big problems.
And then before the season-ender against Green Bay, the Bears get Jacksonville. Ah yes, the Jaguars. Know who's starting for them this Sunday? Mike Glennon. Uh huh, that Mike Glennon.
The Jaguars are in full tank mode as they aim for Trevor Lawrence and the best way to do that is to play Glennon, the man Ryan Pace handed $45 million for three years, with $18 million guaranteed.
Glennon started four games in Chicago, going 1-3. Did we mention the $18 million?
Along with the $29 million Mitch Trubisky has collected and the $17 million guaranteed Nick Foles, that's $64 million for Glennon, Trubisky and Foles.
Ryan Pace sure does know quarterbacks.
How does a GM keep his job when ownership looks at those dollars for those players at the most important position on the field? The better question is, how has he kept his job this long?
In any case, these are some games the Bears should win, if they're still interested in playing. After Nagy's remarks of last Monday, the veterans on this team certainly won't be doing it for him if they rally this group.
But the last thing ownership needs now is Trubisky defeating terrible teams and giving Pace an excuse to bring back his favorite project. Any victories now also give Pace and Nagy the opportunity to sell the McCaskeys on this fabulous program, explaining how they need to stick with it because they just haven't had enough time to prove themselves.
Six years is just not enough time.
Yeah, sounds funny when you say it out loud, but a nice winning streak against the bottom of the NFL would allow Pace to get fired up, Nagy to dance and Trubisky to hold up that No. 1 finger as he trots joyfully off the field.
If ownership is trying to determine right now whether any of them should retain their jobs, any such victories could cloud their judgment.
It's easy to get fooled in garbage time, bad players piling up stats against other bad players. Coaches like Nagy, desperate to stay employed, will point to that as the evidence that this Trubisky 5.0 is absolutely different from all the Trubisky versions of the last four years.
Of course, you know the Bears are in need of someone who can draft talent and also someone who can develop that talent, but beware the wounded exec or coach who finds a way to place the blame on the assistant coaches they hired.
There are almost always scapegoats available in the NFL, but even the best bandits run out of them eventually.