If Ted Phillips isn't a "Football Guy" chances are, neither are you.

Because clearly you missed the part where I actually agree with Dave. nd no, Sweetness didn’t smack anything down. I’m waiting to see if he’s willing to do a debate piece with me, but if not, I have my response ready below.

But you might take a little time to actually read what I’ve written on the thread. My only disagreement with Sweetness is in the idea that many of the family players in the front office don’t have a football background (which is subjective at it’s heart anyways). I’ve never argued that Philips doesn’t. In fact, I think Philips has a much better pedigree than most. I just think his performance hasn’t been up to snuff from a fan perspective (championships would be nice, for example). All of that is readily available on this very thread.

As to the cause of success for other teams, Sorry, but the President DOES have some affect on that, and you stated that very thing in your own post.

Ted gets one more shot at it (hiring of a GM). It’s best to judge Ted by the next hire he makes, not by what you "think" you know about him.

If that has nothing to do with the success of the club, then why does he only get one more shot and why does it have any affect on his personal outcome?

the President ois responsible for a lot more than the success of the club. Bottom line is actully that Philips could very well survive ten more general managers if he continues to do the rest of his job right. I’m not even sure he can be held accountable for the next GM. I’d be willing to bet that the retaining of Lovie Smith came from higher up than Ted Philips. That retention is going to make that GM search far more difficult.

Hell, for all we know, Ted Philips actual job is to be the fall guy.

It boils down to this, if building a successful football team is Philips ultimate mission statement, then he has been less than great at his job, but certainly not the worst in the league.

If building a successful and profitable business model is his mission statement than there is no way the McCaskeys can fire him in good conscience. He’s got a team that hasn’t seen a championship in 26 years and that has the league’s smallest seating capacity in the top five of revenue earners in the league, at least according to the most recent numbers I could find, which would be 2008 season figures from Forbes that i linked elsewhere on this thread.

The reality of the situation is that many here don’t seem to understand what a team president does. They blame guys like Philips for roster and coaching issues, which is ludicrous. They are executives. Yet people here are expecting these guys to need to have played or coached the game to be a good president. That’s like expecting the president of my plant to know how to run my mill and assuming that since he can’t, he isn’t good at his job. That’s where I have a problem with Sweetness’ comment, along with the inaccuracies and omissions. My argument isn’t that those others that he listed had a football background that Philips doesn’t have, but that they actually do have football backgrounds that he doesn’t acknowledge, and that Philips is also a “football guy” with a football background.

To be, the idea that Philips isnt a football guy because he’s also an accountant is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as the idea that the others Sweetness listed aren’t football guys because they didn’t meet some made-up criteria for being a “football guy”.

Now, MuleTrain, exactly what did I assume? Seems to me you did all the assuming here.

False Premise? Bad research? I’ll stand by both of those. The idea that football family can’t be football people is false premise. The idea that the backgrounds that Sweetness himself gave aren’t football backgrounds for an executive level staff member is also false premise. And I intend on fleshing out the “bad research” portion of this argument a little later, but let’s just say that when you’re trying to prove the lack of “football experience” of a president, brevity in listing their qualifications is poor research, if you’re assuming honesty in the poster, which I do assume (you got me, I assumed Sweetness is honest, but judging by his response to my post, it was a valid assumption so I think the assumption should be forgiven).

I don’t see anything I stated that he denied or proved false. In fact, he admitted to most of what I said and then just swept it under the rug. That’s not smackdown, that’s spinaroni. Get your wrestling descriptions straight.

Just because we won 1 game last year doesn’t mean that wasn’t a ‘playoff run’, you forget to factor in that we also go the Bye and were in the NFCGG twice in the past five years. We were in the playoffs twice in the past five, three times in the past six… Yeah, we need to close the deal. It doesn’t mean we’re under-achieving though. This franchise has one once in the the past 30 years. We say that ‘oh, they just need to win the big one’, like it’s some indication that they’re doing something right…

The big one, the super bowl, whatever, it’s not the end all be all statistic of a team that plays well and is heading in the right direction… It’s, in many ways like the world series, you have to be hot at the right time to get there… You have to stay hot for a 3-4 week period… the team with the most talent won’t always win the game. Just ask the Packers. The Saints. They’re sitting at home like we are… There’s a fair amount of luck, preparation, and matchups that come into play, and only one of those is in any control of the front office and coaching staff.

Also that and the injury bug.

You take that out of the equation, I don’t think anyone is crying, except for JA’s firing…

That’s really the primary thing… It’s like trying to compare the Cubs to the Blackhawks… (or the Sox… but then again, we can talk about Reinsdorf for days as well). The NFL is a significantly different beast that has a completely modifier that mostly runs of finances that is larger than the NHL by a power of ten.

The Bears are worth at least Billion with a B. The Hawks are worth probably closer to 300 million… They’re completely different markets, in different environments, in completely different stages. The Hawks were absolutely hamstringed by Bill Wirtz, neglected even… The Bears aren’t. The Bears have, over the past 12 years have shown a willingness to be competitive in the environment and make the changes necessary to stay competitive. Yes, we’re looking for the big break still, but, Drafting isn’t management’s forte. You put the blame where it’s supposed to be. It’s not an institutional failure because the Bears have been to the playoffs 3 times in 8 years, and without a catastrophic injury spree, 4 times… The direction of the organization has improved in the past 10 years…

82-78…

That’s the record over the past 10 years, it’s an improvement over the previous 10 years. (69-91), and gasp half way between that and the years in the 80s (96-64)… in the Lovie Smith Era, if you extrapolate out to 10 years (the remainder of his contract)… you’re likely to get an 89-71 decade based on his win percentage… you’re likely to see the playoffs at least once, if not twice more based on Pythagorean scoring and wins… You’re good for 4 playoffs a decade and 2 real runs (which we’ve had 2 runs already last year and in 2005)… I think you’re trying to imply that the real cause of all the Bears troubles since 1985 have been explicitly the McCaskeys, but you’re also failing to reward them for the bangup job they’ve done over the past decade to turn this team around.

This is absolutely a strong organization, it’s a powerful franchise, and it has the money to do stuff. It’s not the most splashy of franchises, but… Chicago, like Kansas City is a blue collar town. I don’t know if you’re from there, but, the concept I think runs through a lot of the businesses that take root there. I don’t know what you expect out of the franchise, but I think that the franchise has identified that there’s problems and are taking the steps to rectify that. Yes, they’ve been a bit recalcitrant toward being fast, but, again, as I’ve said many times, the NFL leaps before it looks, and the franchise I think is acting in it’s best interest by not going on firing sprees ala Kansas City, Miami, Tampa Bay, Oakland… and cleaning house when not everything is wrong. Why cut off your arm when only the hand is the issue?