When Jay Cutler arrived in Chicago, nobody was more exited than Lovie Smith who felt he had hit the same pay dirt that Doc Rivers did when Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett landed with the Boston Celtics. At 7-9 SU and 6-10 ATS, with Cutler leading the league in interceptions and the vaunted Bears defense ranking an abysmal 21st in the league in points allowed, many expected Lovie to get fired for a lackluster effort that saw him miss the playoffs for a third straight year. Surprisingly, Lovie has somehow clung on to his job.

Since arriving in Chicago in 2004, Lovie has gone 52-44 as a head coach and appeared in Super Bowl XLI in a loss to the Colts during the 2006 campaign. He’s had three winning season, three losing ones and his team has been a virtual betting disaster the past two years. This year especially, the Bears were sports gambling kryptonite.

With a Pro Bowl worthy talent like Cutler, the Bears were supposed to make the playoffs and contend for the Super Bowl. The former Denver quarterback had big games against Seattle, Arizona and Minnesota this season but failed to deliver Chicago to the promised land and Lovie was supposed to be the one that got the axe.

It’s not just this season. I’ve lambasted Smith on a skewer for removing Devin Hester from special teams as a kick returner. As the team’s supposed number-one guy, Hester had a world of studying and work ahead of him to become a reliable receiver at the NFL level and though he led the Bears with 757 receiving yards, he had just 57 catches and three touchdowns. As the failed Dante Hall experiment proved, sometimes guys are just great kick returners. That doesn’t mean that you have to make them the core of your entire offense.

Smith and his coaching staff have also been unable to turn guys like Earl Bennett, Greg Olsen or Johnny Knox in to reliable targets for their quarterbacks. Running back Matt Forte didn’t crest the 1,000 yards mark this year and had just 4 touchdowns completely offset by the fact he fumbled the ball 5 times. I know that this isn’t college, but at some point a coach and his staff simply have to get the job done with the talent that they have and Lovie has failed at every turn to do so.

With Brian Urlacher leading an insanely productive defense in 2005 and 2006, the Bears won the NFC North in back-to-back seasons. You can’t credit Lovie for having one of the scariest defenses ever seen on the NFL landscape during that time because the personnel he was working with was unreal. The fact that the much-injured Bears defense hasn’t survived injuries the past three years (ranking 16th, 16th and 21st over the past three years) speaks volumes about Lovie’s inability to develop player talents.


When that’s the main flaw of a coach, then he can’t stay in Chicago. Jerry Angelo, owner of the Bears, has been staunch on his stance that he will build his team through drafting. The fact he traded away his drafting future for the next two seasons for Chicago was the biggest trade in Bears history, and with Chicago not possessing any viable trade bait on their current roster (they’re not trading Urlacher if that’s what you’re thinking), Chicago is stuck idling as teams like Minnesota, Green Bay and even Detroit get better each year.

The main hindrance that many thought was the problem in Chicago was the $11 million buyout price of the remainder for Lovie’s current deal. The Chicago Bears are worth reportedly $1.082 billion, making them one of the most valuable franchises in the sport. You can’t tell me that $11 million scares the ownership that much when their team is floundering like a beached whale.
The real reason that Lovie is staying in Chicago is simply continuity. Teams like Cleveland and Buffalo change their coaching staffs so frequently that their players get confused by revolving playbooks. The Bears don’t have any tangible trading assets, they have no draft picks in the 2010 NFL Draft and they have no building blocks to be hopeful about aside from Cutler himself.
The Bears aren’t pulling the trigger on Smith because they expect this team to do well with somebody else holding the clipboard, and they’re certainly not gaffing at the $11M buyout price. I think, more than anything, they know there’s no point in making a change at the top because it wouldn’t matter if they did. The Bears will be struggling for a playoff spot for the next two seasons no matter who’s coaching. They might as well ride out the Lovie Smith era while they’re financially obliged to.
That’s right, Bears fans. The ownership has thrown in the towel for next year already.

This information is provided in partnership with BetUs Sportsbook

More ...