(670 The Score) A day after reaffirming his commitment to Bears general manager Ryan Pace, chairman George McCaskey on Thursday reiterated his belief that the organization doesn't need another football executive above the general manager in the franchise's power structure.
McCaskey feels comfortable with the Bears’ current hierarchy, which features Pace as the lead football executive and president Ted Phillips as the lead executive at McCaskey's side. Under the structure, Pace has full authority of football decisions and reports to Phillips, who doesn't have a football background.
“I’ve heard a lot about you need a football guy, a czar, a president of football operations, whatever,” McCaskey said on the Danny Parkins Show on Thursday. “In our structure, the football guy is the general manager. Even if you had a president of football operations, that guy at some point would be reporting to a non-football person. To me, it’s not so much the structure as it is the people. We think we’ve got the right people. We understand not everybody agrees with that. But we think we do.”
The Bears are coming off an 8-8 regular season that was followed by a 21-9 loss to the Saints on Sunday in the wild-card round. The unsatisfying season led to questions about whether Pace and coach Matt Nagy would be retained for 2021.
On Wednesday, McCaskey and Phillips confirmed that Pace will return for a seventh season and Nagy will be retained for a fourth year. Additionally, Phillips will be back for a 22nd year as team president. The Bears have only made six playoff appearances in Phillips' tenure, but McCaskey emphasized that the evaluation of him goes far beyond wins and losses.
“Ted has done an outstanding job for us,” McCaskey said. “Getting us through this pandemic is just another example of it. He’s accessible, he communicates well, he has great organizational skills. He requires much of people.
“Our family has the utmost faith in him. Very grateful for the job that he’s done in his time with the Bears.”