Chicago Bears: Keeping Vic Fangio a Question of Timing
By Erik Lambert
The Chicago Bears are focused on hiring their next head coach. It’s a competitive market and timing could be everything in that regard.
At the same time there’s another clock they’re working against. This one could be almost equally important. That being the status of defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. The 59-year old is coming off one of the best coaching jobs of his career. Despite dealing with an injury-riddled unit missing their three-best pass rushers for a considerable stretch, it still finished the year ranked 9th in points allowed and 10th in total defense.
Fangio is still under contract to this point and the Bears have been holding off other teams like the Packers and Bengals from interviewing him for their vacant coordinator positions. However, that’s about to change. His contract will expire on Tuesday, January 9th. Word is the team is very interested in him staying on board with the next head coach. The problem is they don’t have much time to find who that is before other teams are free to come in with their own offers.
The #Bears highly value what Vic Fangio did for the defense. They are expected to push to keep him. It might not be as head coach, but as DC.
— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) January 3, 2018
Eagles QB coach John DeFilippo has completed his interview with the Chicago Bears. Word is he’d be willing to retain Vic Fangio as DC, maintaining stability on Bears defensive side of the ball. @gmfb @NFLonFOX
— Peter Schrager (@PSchrags) January 6, 2018
The Bears need a coach that both respects and is respected by Fangio
For Chicago the problem isn’t just time, of which there is little. They also need to find a head coach that satisfies three requirements. First, is he the guy that can turn Mitch Trubisky into the star player he can be? Next, will he accept the idea of keeping Fangio on as defensive coordinator? Last but not least, will Fangio respect the guy enough to want to stay on board? This makes the job difficult for GM Ryan Pace as satisfying all requirements in such a short window is a tall order.
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Everything has to click almost from the beginning, which may explain why the Bears have gone through their interviews with such speed in the past couple days. Early returns are they’ve narrowed the list but want to get a few more meetings done to make sure they’ve covered all their bases. If things go as planned they could get an agreement in place with enough time to convince Fangio to sign an extension before his contract expires.