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(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
The Chicago Bears have made the playoffs twice, one division title, and have had just two winning seasons ever since George McCaskey took over as chairman of the board in 2011.
Clearly, it has not been the decade of George.
The Chicago Bears are 79-97 and have five double-digit losing seasons under his leadership. Under McCaskey’s leadership, the Chicago Bears had the least amount of wins in a 16-game schedule with three in 2016.
While 99-year old Virginia McCaskey is the official owner, she defers to her son on most ownership decisions. His record shows he makes bad decisions-a lot of them.
The problem is you cannot fire the owner.
George has had no problem firing head coaches and general managers only to get the same losing results. He has gone through three, and most likely four, head coaches and general managers.
Yet, during his first 10 years cloaked in failure, he has had just one team president and CEO in Ted Phillips–whose overall record going back to his start date in 1999 is even worse.
Chicago Bears chairman George McCaskey is not a football person, and needs some help.
McCaskey is an admitted non-football person. Even though this is the family business and the only revenue source that makes his family and him billionaires, George has made no effort to learn all the in’s and out’s of football.
Even then, not knowing every little football detail like his grandfather, team founder and NFL legend, George Halas is not his biggest problem.
George McCaskey has three bigger issues leading to management failure as detailed by Chicago Tribune Bears beat reporter, Dan Weirder.
The first problem is being in denial.
This recently from a trusted league source: “The Bears live in a constant state of denial, from the top-down. They stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that what everyone in the outside world sees is actually real.”
— Dan Wiederer (@danwiederer) January 6, 2022
The second is possible paranoia and lack of confidence.
The same source emphasized that, to him, the lack of availability and lack of openness to questions by George and Ryan — and to some extent Ted — is somewhat rooted in paranoia but also a symptom of a subconscious lack of confidence in the actual direction and plan.
— Dan Wiederer (@danwiederer) January 6, 2022
The third problem-which is George’s biggest challenge-is that he is listening to the wrong people. Weirder detailed McCaskey’s inability to seek guidance outside of his inner circle.
“If you’re the Bears, there’s no way, with what’s consistently happening on the field, that you can look yourself in the mirror and say you see a successful organization,”
So now what?https://t.co/3cfAJ0tYho
— Dan Wiederer (@danwiederer) December 19, 2021
I highly recommend paying the subscription fee to read the piece. It is an outstanding and has the most indicting line on a chairman resisting getting to know the family business in detail…