How Bad Timing Prevented The Bears From Keeping The Coach Of The Future

A lot of fans began dreaming the moment it happened. The Adam Gase Bears head coaching movement. It made so much sense. With John Fox being in his 60s, it was just a matter of time before he'd be walking away from the game. Having Gase as the offensive coordinator made it likely the team had his eventual successor in place. Sadly this dream never came true. After one productive year at the job, Gase was hired away to become head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Just like that hopes were dashed. Everything they were building had to change with the promotion of Dowell Loggains to fill his spot. Jay Cutler regressed badly after a strong 2015 under Gase's direction. The team itself went from 5-11 to 3-13. Meanwhile the man himself wasted no time showcasing his ability to adjust and manage an organization on the fly. After a rough 1-4 start in 2016, the Dolphins rebounded down the stretch to make the playoffs for the first time in eight years. For many in Chicago, it was a real gut punch.

Adam Gase Bears scenario suffered from brutal bad timing

By 2015, Gase was a hot commodity in coaching circles. The young man was renowned for his keen offensive mind. One that reinvigorated the career of Peyton Manning in Denver. One that produced the greatest single offensive season in NFL history. It was actually a surprise that he wasn't hired as a head coach that year. In fact he came close a couple times before politics got in the way. The Bears benefited from that sequence of events. Fox brought his protege in as offensive coordinator. However, it was clear to anybody with half a brain that Gase was almost certain to become a head coach the next year. That left Chicago in a bind. The only way they could keep him was by firing Fox and promoting him to head coach themselves. Something that would be hard to justify after just one season.

The future remains foggy

Sure enough GM Ryan Pace chose to stick with Fox. Gase left for Miami and is now considered by many to be the eventual heir apparent in the AFC East to Bill Belichick as NFL.com explained.

According to the team's assistant head coach Darren Rizzi, who has been with the Dolphins in some fashion since 2010, the new coach-culture combo led to three more wins in 2016. "I've been on, I think, teams that were 7-9 that might've had more talent than we had last year," Rizzi told the Palm Beach Post.

"We had a lot of teams here in my years -- I've been here eight years -- there have been some teams where we had to win at the end of the season where we didn't," Rizzi added. "had to win some big games that we didn't. can probably point to two or three different years. We can sit here and talk about a bunch of different years, and last year we did."

So while Gase is thriving, his former mentor Fox is fighting for his life. The veteran head coach is up against the wall in 2017. He has eight wins in his first two seasons. Conventional wisdom says if he can't gain progress this year, he's likely gone. Pace maintains his public support of Fox, but everything has a breaking point. Odds are if the Bears finish any worse than 6-10 there will be a change. Even that might not be good enough. Fox is 62-years old. Rumors of his exit have gained steam since the fall of last year of a rift between him and Pace. The hottest one involves the Bears asking him to resign, which he refused. So now he's sort of a figurehead for this season while the roster continues to shape in the image Pace wants. There's no proof of such things. Not yet anyway. Still, it's fair to wonder how different things might be had the Bears hung on to Gase.