Over here at Fire Ron Turner we love The Heckler and of course also The Onion.
Here is a great summary of Mr. Turner and the Bears from The Heckler:
Ron Turner’s second stint as Bears offensive coordinator mercifully ended Tuesday, after high hopes for a dynamic offense fell flat in 2009. Bears president Ted Phillips promised fans “‘probably won’t” ever re-hire Turner in the future like the team did once already.
“It’s no secret Ron wasn’t a great offensive coordinator his first time with the Bears,” said Phillips of Turner’s first turn as offensive coordinator in the ’90s. “We assumed he had gotten better while leading Illinois to a 35-57 record. Guess we were wrong.”
Quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton was also fired Tuesday, but QB Jay Cutler doesn’t seem to think Hamilton will be missed. “We had a quarterbacks coach?” asked Cutler. “I knew we had an offensive coordinator because he was the guy who kept calling the same five plays all season, but I had no clue we had a quarterbacks coach.”
That is a great summary – I knew we had an offensive coordinator because he was the guy who kept calling the same five plays all season.
Good Bears piece in today’s ChiTrib business section.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-thu-burns-bears-0107-jan07,0,2811366.column
In that article it took them a long time to get to the point, but he finally said it – $11 million dollars to buy out Lovie, and don’t forget probably another $20-30mm to buy out the rest of the staff that they would have to let go.
Figure that PLUS another $40mm (at least) if you want some top flight coaches and staff in the rehiring process (gm too?) and the Bears, by retaining Lovie and Angelo, just saved themselves somewhere in the neighborhood of $75mm. Sounds like a great business decision to me.
For kicks I just put my name on the season ticket list for another pair. Can’t wait to see how long it takes. If the list is long, why in the world would the Bears management care about paying all that money to get someone like Cowher when you can have Lovie and company on the cheap (a la the Cubs)?
If the waiting list is short, however, that certainly throws in a few more questions into the mix.