Today the Bears announced what we’d been hoping for, that Ron Turner, who has done next to nothing for the Bears and left our beloved Illini flat on their backs, is gone.
From the official Bears news release:
In his five seasons in his second stint as Bears offensive coordinator, the offense ranked 29th, 15th, 27th, 26th and 23rd in total yards. Turner’s best year was in 2006 when he helped the Bears reach the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman at quarterback. This season a unit that had six new starters ranked 29th rushing and 17th passing.
It’s always great to have a team 29th in the league in rushing when the motto is to “get off the bus running”. As always, Ron gets one partially decent season (15th out of 32 teams, a bit over 50% against his peers) and then years and years of being down near where he usually resides, in the lowest quartile.
In the transcripts of the news conferences with Lovie and Angelo and Phillips I noted that they focused on the defense and hardly mentioned the offense, except as it relates to Cutler. Bears fans – we are never going to win the championship with out a good offense – so let’s keep the pressure on to actually get a great coordinator and leverage our talent.
Our site also got a boost (we don’t have advertising, so we don’t care) as many people came here to see the news. Our thread earlier to the day with the news conference had a lot of our usual good commenters and we appreciate your support – a big shout out to Fro Dog, Kyle, T06, Doshi, and many other supporters of this site.
There were also a few groans as we all not-so-secretly hoped for bigger changes, including booting Lovie and Angelo. While we didn’t get everything we wanted, we did get rid of Turner, and for now let’s rejoice on that.
I am going to soak this in for a few days and rejoice. I am secretly hoping we will get Weis, at least he has a decent track record of running a pro offense at some point in the past.
That sitemeter is hilharious.
I still would love to be the fly on the wall of the poor fans of whatever team Ron lands on when they find this site.
Ron’s gone, as is most of the Bears offensive staff, which is both good and bad depending on your thoughts.
I don’t think that Boras deserved to be fired. Des Clark has always been a good-to-great TE, and Olsen has been improving, even if he isn’t the tough Ditka TE prototype. I am, however, pissed to hell that Spencer (RBs) and Drake (WRs) are still with this team. How does a complete RB regression and zero WR improvement mean that these two get to keep their jobs? It boggles the mind, IMO…
At least now the Bears can actually hire an offensive coordinator. Any suggestions?
As stated before, I really like Chan Gailey. I think that he’s a creative OC who can maximize the talents of his players even when those players aren’t especially good. He did a remarkable job at KC last year, as I’ve stated before. He’s also a cheap option, being fired from the worst team in the NFL last year.
I’d also be fine with Charlie Weis. He is a terrible head coach, and I just don’t like the guy, but he’s a DAMN good OC. I think that he’d calm down Cutler a lot, light a fire under Olsen’s @$$, and actually get the line working correctly.
I do NOT want to see Mike Martz come in. He got lucky with quite possibly the most talented offense in NFL history, and has done absolutely nothing ever since the Greatest Show closed.
Any other thoughts about the new OC?
How about the new DC? I really hope they go outside the organization for this one. This is just a feeling, but it looks to me like none of the coaches on the Bears staff have talent above a Position Coach level. For all the whining and moaning, Babich is pretty good with the LBs, Hoke got some decent production out of an inexperienced secondary, and Marinelli isn’t a coach (just got lucky with the best DL of the past decade).
You should consider starting a website about Firing Lovie Smith. With all of his talk about how things change and how the team and players need to change he still wants to stick to the Cover 2.
Ron Rivera’s last 2 years as DC the defense was ranked 5 and 2 and since then the defense has been ranked 28th, 21st, and 17th.
Obviously it doesnt make a smart business decision to fire Lovie(and Angelo) and pay their salaries when there is a looming lockout, but still as a Bears fan I have had enough of Lovie.
Gerry – good summation. The non-firing of Angelo and Smith, while not at all popular, was a very sound business decision.
We aren’t sure which way this site will go, we will just soak in the minor victory that is the firing of Ron Turner for a while.
Doshi – I too am stunned that Drake wasn’t canned.
I am with you in the 17 year continual slap in the face. I have waited for this time for so long, and I finally have hope for the future.
Chuck Weis is the last person we need. Chuck is sooooo committed to the pass that he is willing to throw the ball and lose rather that run a little and win. I’m an Irish fan and it was pathetic how many times the Irish threw this year, despite the fact we had a great run game and offensive line. The Bears need to get back to smash-mouth football on both sides of the ball. Chicago Bear football!!!!
JP – like the clown said on Seinfeld – “you’re livin’ in the past, man!”. The Bears don’t get off the bus running anymore, as proven the last three years. Every offense needs to be balanced. Weis is a proven commodity in the pro ranks, he did great in New England. I wouldn’t mind seeing him here.
I will agree with you that our D needs to man up and start cracking heads, but that is another subject for another day.
Lovie Smith is either blind or stupid…
“Believe me, people will want to come here. Coaches don’t deal in long-term commitments and things like that. It’s about getting the job done right away. There will be a lot of candidates that will come and want to be a part of what we’re going to do next year. We have a good nucleus of players here that they all see.”
That one quote tells me everything I need to know about Lovie Smith. Fire his retarded ass as soon as possible!
Doshi – dumbest quote I have seen in a long time. Why would any good offensive coordinator want that job? Rumor has it Weis will land in KC.
Coordinators and free agents will come to the Bears…When there is an actual head coach in charge. And we haven’t had one in nearly two decades.
You hit that nail squarely on the head Fro.
Thanks Dan.
By the way. How dumb of me to forget to mention an actual general manager on the team has well.
Thanks for the shout out. It would appear that Bates will join Pete Carroll in Seattle (though you never know) which would probably leave us with either Martz or Weiss as OC for next year. Both would be upgrades (obviously) but I personally like Weiss. That being said, Lovie will probably want his friends around for the sinking of the ship, so it will probably be Martz. Speaking of his friends, Fewell will probably get the DC position. I’ve got no problems with that given how he finished the season in Buffalo, though I really don’t know alot about that situation. Anyway, 1 moron down (Turner) 3 more (Angelo, Phillips and Lovie) to go. See you next year! Go Bears!
There are a lot of people in this world who don’t deserve being fired. There are a lot of people who put in AWESOME work but still get fired. In some cases, it’s unfair, and others – not so much! Keep in mind though change… Change, change, change. Now, i’m not trying to be the next barack obama or anything, but change is what we need. Our defense sucked this year, yes, but our offense sucks every year, doesn’t it? We have a star qb and nothing! Right? Everyone has put blame on our wr. And yes, they aren’t perfect either. However, they have played better in the past, right? My point is, you can’t fire the cheif and not pick through his indians as well. If you have a captain who runs a bad ship, and you’re the captains, captain, you have to look at the big picture. The ship doesn’t perform like the other ships. So you need to get rid of the captain, and all of his pirates, and you start fresh! I don’t think anyone has the right to judge Lovie just yet! Ron, yeah, Lovie no..For one thing Lovie is starting fresh. My respect is won at least until next season as far as Lovie goes. =) He got rid of ron which is what we wanted, right?
Dude, put the crack pipe down. The Bears should have fired Lovie and Angelo and brought in Cowher and company, plain and simple. They made a damned good business decision, but not the decision that will bring the one thing to Chicago that we all want – wins.