(670 The Score) Hall of Fame executive Bill Polian will assist the Bears in their search for a new general manager and coach, chairman George McCaskey said Monday afternoon in a news conference after firing Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy.
Polian, 79, was the Colts’ top football executive from 1998-2009 and the architect of the Indianapolis team that won the Super Bowl after the 2006 season. He remained with the organization through 2011 before leaving the NFL. He was also the Bills' general manager from 1986-'92, helping build a roster that advanced to four straight Super Bowls but lost all of them.
Beyond Polian, McCaskey also revealed the rest of the Bears’ search team, which he’ll lead. President Ted Phillips, vice president of player engagement LaMar Campbell and senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion Tanesha Wade will be the other three members of the committee.
“Bill Polian is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame because of his success as a pro football executive, including his hiring of two head coaches – Marv Levy and Tony Dungy – who are themselves in the Hall of Fame,” McCaskey said. “He’s well-regarded in league circles and has a lot of context. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have Bill assisting us in our search."
McCaskey emphasized he’ll make the final decision on who the Bears hire. He also defended his choice to tab an outside in Polian to help out.
“It would be a fair criticism if somebody said, ‘I’m going to make this decision all by myself, I’m not going to get any input from anybody else,’” McCaskey said. “We’d be wondering where this guy is coming from. We have a great resource available to us. We’re going to take full advantage of that resource. I expect that there will be vigorous discussion and debate after we interview each candidate. I was struck in our early conversations with Bill how very much on top of the game he is and on our situation.
“We’ll be in good hands leaning on Bill to help us make this decision.”
The Bears fire Pace and Nagy on Monday morning, one day after they finished a 6-11 campaign. They had just one winning record in Pace’s seven-year tenure in Chicago.