Chicago Bears: Are Rebuild Expectations Too High?
By Erik Lambert
Team rebuilds in general are varied. That’s because not all of them go like it has for the Bears. Some involve a GM who was in place but the team hired a new coach to install new schemes. There is the opposite way where a head coach is kept but a new GM hired to reshape the roster. Chicago went with the clean slate approach, hiring both their new GM and head coach at the same time. Results for these rebuild styles don’t line up perfectly, but they do have a general time frame in common.
It typically takes a new regime three years to get tangible results from their efforts. Here is a rundown of some of the more successful head coaches in recent years and how they fair in their first three seasons on the job.
Seahawks: Pete Carroll
- 2010: 7-9 (playoffs)
- 2011: 7-9
- 2012: 11-5 (playoffs)
Packers: Mike McCarthy
- 2005: 4-12
- 2006: 8-8
- 2007: 13-3 (playoffs)
Lions: Jim Schwartz
- 2009: 2-14
- 2010: 6-10
- 2011: 10-6 (playoffs)
Rams: Dick Vermeil
- 1997: 5-11
- 1998: 4-12
- 1999: 13-3 (playoffs)
Saints: Sean Payton
- 2006: 10-6 (playoffs)
- 2007: 7-9
- 2008: 8-8
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Not every example is the same but the basic trend is. Even if a team makes the playoffs under the head coach their first year, it’s often via a wild card. Then the next year they revert back to their normal form, which is a team without much talent. By year three though the results are clear enough. Almost all of them have shown significant improvement. This is because the players they’ve drafted and schemes they’ve installed have been given ample time to mesh.
One has to remember it’s almost impossible to build a roster with star power overnight. That vaunted core of Brian Urlacher, Olin Kreutz, Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman began in 1998 and wasn’t in place until 2003. Those teams were painful to watch for a long time until the building process finally bore fruit. The difference this time is the Bears have a more proven coaching staff in place aside maybe from Dowell Loggains.
John Fox isn’t the greatest but he’s far superior to Dick Jauron. If the Bears are going to get this thing off the ground, then people must trust the process. Painful as it is to watch in real time.