Looks like Lovie for life as Bears coach
Lovie Smith recently issued a promise, threat or simple statement of fact.
“I love being here,” he said at Halas Hall, “and plan on being here a long time.”
Yikes!
Lovie Smith: Bears head coach for life!
His life, my life and your life!
When Miley Cyrus is sworn in as America’s 50th president, when China becomes our 51st state, when Kim Kardashian and Jay Cutler celebrate their 52nd wedding anniversary … Smith still will be coaching the Bears.
Smith is such a survivor that we presume he’ll still be coaching the Bears long after most Bears fans have joined that big Papa Bear in the sky.
Every season that Smith nears the end of his contract, the Bears will play just well enough to save his job.
Like now, general manager Jerry Angelo has made it a priority this off-season to extend both Smith’s contract and the probability this coach will be this team’s coach for the rest of time.
Meanwhile, a good number of Bears fans will continue to want Smith fired in non-playoff years like the last three and to endure him in playoff years like this one.
Smith shouldn’t take the lack of affection personally. Nobody is accusing him of kicking dogs or burning the wings off ladybugs.
I’d probably like Smith if he were a lawyer or even a sports writer. The same goes if he coached another NFL team.
But as Bears coach … no, he just never seems to fit the role as defined by central casting.
Smith’s primary sin is not ever qualifying for the nickname Iron Lovie. In other words he’s no Mike Ditka, or a George Halas for that matter.
The irony is that Smith just might be a better football coach than Iron Mike and Papa Bear were. Not surely, but just maybe.
Smith certainly was the right guy for the 2010 Bears as he nudged them into the NFC championship game.
The flip side of the equation, however, is whether an irritant like Ditka could have nagged the Bears off the cusp and into the postseason at least one of the past three years.
When the Bears miss the playoffs it’s “Fire the bum!” around here as opposed to the current “Tolerate the man!”
Smith never will be Halas or Ditka because it just isn’t his nature to stomp around the sidelines like a wild man or rip his players in public like a crazy man.
Look, Ditka in his own way was a pain in the rear end, but he was our pain in the rear end as Da Coach back in the 1980s. He also was a pain in any defender’s rear end as a Bears tight end even further back in the 1960s.
A hybrid blend of Ditka and Smith personalities would be ideal, but that man likely doesn’t exist and couldn’t survive in the homogenized NFL.
Anyway, the fabled Iron Mike must have chuckled earlier this season when Smith’s performance during a media briefing was considered testy.
Actually Smith was as testy as a Ditka or a Halas would be while talking in his sleep.
Smith’s style only occasionally is combative in public, and then only mildly so. More often he’s dismissive, condescending and inexplicably arrogant.
Come on, sir, as long as you’ll be sticking around into eternity, how about loosening up a little and letting us have some fun with you?
Seriously, Lovie Smith is going to wind up with more tenure here than Joe Paterno has at Penn State.
Consider that what you will: A promise, threat or simple statement of fact.
mimrem@dailyherald.com