FanPost

Will luck cost Ryan Pace and John Fox their jobs?

The NFL is based around super-athletes running as fast as they can and crashing into each other, so it is to be expected that some injuries will occur. However, last year the Bears caught the injury bug a bit harsher than usual. The Bears put nineteen people on the IR last year, which, per an article the Bears posted on their own site yesterday, tied for second in the league with the 49ers behind the Chargers, who put twenty on the IR. So I found it rather intriguing that in that same article, Ryan Pace went on the record talking about how the Bears will plan on avoiding injuries this season.

"We have made some tweaks and some adjustments," Pace said. "Without going into specifics, but it could be some scheduling things, some training camp things, things we're doing in the weight room, things we're doing in the training room, just dialing things in to adapt and not just put our heads in the sand and say, 'oh that's bad luck.'"

Well these are probably all good moves, and hopefully they do reduce injuries, because I want the Bears to win more than three games next year, and it is hard to win with all your players hurt. I just wonder how much injuries really can be avoided, and how much of it is simply poor luck, and the fact that some players, for some reason, tend to be more injury prone than others.

More importantly though, if the Bears are really serious about taking measures to avoid injury, why don’t they look into maybe improving the playing surface at Soldier Field? If it was not self-evident from watching the Bears slip around the field any time it had rained within the past week before a game, it only takes a cursory Google search to find a litany of articles from several different outlets lambasting the Bears for having a terrible playing surface. And who can forget Antrel Rolle publicly bashing the Bears for their playing surfaces at Halas Hall and Soldier Field, ""The surfaces in the Chicago facilities are the worst I’ve ever been around, I’m just gonna be honest with you," Rolle told the New York Post. "I slipped on the surface, I wasn’t even running -- I was just kind of shuffling and slipped."" Now Rolle might not be the most accurate source for this, since he did lose quite a bit of money through his injuries, but the fact of the matter is, if the Bears are so serious about avoiding injuries this year, I hope they really do look into maybe improving their field surfaces. To be fair, John Fox did say, "We did a lot to improve the fields" before last season, and if that is the case then maybe if just was bad luck last year. But if the Bears catch the bad luck of the injury bug again, it will be Pace and Fox’s jobs on the line, so maybe they should look into improving the fields a little more because I’d really like to see some of our guys on the field this year, not sitting on the sideline.

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1/Bears-making-changes-to-lessen-injuries/6e835006-83bd-46b5-a082-18f8d4cbe4e5

NOTE: This is the first time I’ve done a fan-post, so I hope it doesn’t suck too much, I’ve read this site for a long time and respect it a bunch, but this is the first time I’ve gotten off my butt to contribute.

This Fanpost was written by a Windy City Gridiron member and does not necessarily reflect the ideas or opinions of its staff or community.