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In an era of the crashing of workforce participation like none other in modern America, which has literally come to be known as The Great Resignation, this is an interesting take.

It has to be true, otherwise people would just be quitting their jobs in droves.

Appreciate the reply. But I guess aside from being a “good guy” which I agree he does seem like a positive, likeable human…I’m still not sure what I can point to that tells me he is a good football coach. The organization had a great year going 12-4 and Nagy deserves credit for that like everyone else. We saw some creative plays, fun season. But things got worse every year. How many press conferences did we have to hear when Nagy would give us “That one is on me.” Or “Yeah we’d like to do that one over again if we had the chance?” I guess what I’m saying is I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can realize Ryan Pace continued to make moves that hurt this organization and made this roster worse over time. At that same time, I can realize very few players developed under Matt Nagy and his offense continued to rank near the worst in the league on a regular basis. For someone brought in that was entirely offensive minded and didn’t touch the defense…I expect more from my head coach. He was very bad at his job during his time in Chicago, deserves to be fired and I would be very upset if I was the fan of another team and they hired him to be my new offensive coordinator. Again, the man fired himself from the job…twice…during his time in Chicago.

There's NOTHING in the record amount of job openings mismatched with job seekers for any position under $15/hour or even $20/hr in the US that would suggest this is being reflected by what's actually happening on the ground. And back to baseball...the equivalent of those earning under $15-20 in the MLB economy, anything outside of the first, second and occasional high bonus/lower round June draft picks, Pacific Rim players, Latin Americans under age 18, and all the players in their first 3 seasons don't generally enjoy much protection. Mike Trout in his second and third seasons in baseball recorded 10.1 and 10.2 fWAR seasons. He was pretty clearly one of the best players in the game already, but made less than $2 million combined his first three years. By Balta calculations, that would make him worth roughly $160 million to the Angels, not even including marketing/promotional aspects. What other industry can you think in the entire world that limits the very best performer to the baseball equivalent of minimum wage? If Mike Trout had a career-ending injury after his first three seasons, he would have had just $3.2 million (pretax, including his signing bonus) to his name. (That's a mere pittance compared to the CEO of Binance already being worth $96 BILLION when almost nobody in the world was even familiar with Bitcoin and Ethereum a decade ago when Trout was a rookie, let alone Doge Coin and Shiba Inu.) So does somebody who just happened to be in the right place at the right time (pretty sure the story involves a poker game) deserve that much more than Mike Trout, who was already the best player in the game in years 2 and 3 in his contract but wasn't rewarded for that performance until Spring Training of 2014 ($144.5 million/6 years).

Hahahaha holy shit. Please point to a verifiable corroborated source of information that backs up this claim.

Well done.

The players clearly expect the owners to cave. Not happening.

This is just blatantly wrong. If you look at national polls, there's an overwhelming sentiment of workers being underpaid and overworked. Employers demand a monopoly on their employees time. That's why we need unions.

This is where you and @bmags aren’t grasping the concept. Today could have been different if George came out and said “We aren’t going to repeat the same process we took with Phil Emery and Ryan Pace. As of today, Ted Phillips no longer has any contact with anything that transpires on the field. He is focused on the Bears as a business. Because of that, we now need to hire a President of Football Operations. That job starts now, and a committee comprised of Bill Polian, Name, Name And Name will be in charge of finding the right person for the job. Ultimately I will hire that person, but once completed, that person will find us the next GM and HC of the Chicago Bears.” That’s how you get fans on your side, give them some hope things are changing. Instead, we literally got the exact same press conference we seem to get every 5-7 years. And you can’t understand why fans and media are upset?

Lets objectively look at things (cause they can't just become the Steelers ownership group overnight): Launch both Nagy & Pace - Check Ensure GM Role reports to ownership (and not Teddy) - Check Since George admits he can't do the hiring - Find an adviser to help (Polian) - Check Appears that they at least have preliminary list of names and Polian didn't just come in now (sounds like him and other confidential parties were involved for a while) - Check Not bringing in president role - Miss (but in grand scheme not a huge miss - because as people point out - this isn't done in the NFL like it is a bit more in baseball/basketball) Keeping Ted involved - Miss (end of the day Ted wasn't going to get canned - but the big change is the role NO LONGER reports to him - that is a meaningful change and creates the division everyone wanted prior to this conference). But I can't see Ted's view overriding Polian. So bottom line - if I think about what could happen - I get it, people don't like that George is making another hire, but that is what it is. But I got the vast majority of what I wanted out of this. Now I'll wait to see what they do next. And George was right - the fan base will have all the questions they have and continue to do until the performance of the field changes and consistently changes.

The media oogling over Ballard is annoying, but his discipline would have been far, far superior to post Emery Bears. Had we just fired Ballard, I'm sure our draft capital and salary cap would be in a different place. While hilarious they lost to the Jags, and Wentz being terrible, they've had a difficult decision with QB. He builds the team rapidly for Luck, then luck retires right before the season. While the Bears get Foles or Dalton, they were able to get Philip Rivers. They should have last year probably targeted Mac Jones, but with a fully formed team already, I get why they chose this route. Getting Yo-Yo'd by luck for years led to his lack of QB, we'll see what they do now.

Additionally, any gains made by players will be paid for by fans. Business plans don't generally call for making fewer profits.

The guy has a career 48-65 record during his time with the Bears and had 1 season over .500 He never saw his team win a playoff game. He was very bad at this job. But I'm glad @Harold's Leg Lift "gets why he was fired" because it can be tough to understand why......?

They covered up for a sexual predator.

I really don't understand why everyone wants to play the blame game. Unions and businesses have these negotiation issues all the time. The players and owners make a ton of money and neither side has any right to be upset with their respective situations IMO. If they insist on killing the golden goose...that's on them.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-white-sox-cane-guy-bobblehead-20220107-eqqjfoulcjevpk6khsigd3qkme-story.html That's the kind of off season news I can enjoy.

Slow news day/week/month/off-season

From the guy I called having a temper tantrum earlier

So your irrefutable source on “most employees” is your own personal work experience, that, while valid, is minuscule in the grand scope of labor negotiations. You being staunchly anti-labor doesn’t make your claims true.

This would take a very long time to discuss and be inappropriate to get into a baseball site. We will be getting plenty of politics later in the year.

I have worked in both union and non-union environments. I negotiated contracts on behalf of employers for 30+ years and have a wife who was required to belong to the union of her employer, a major airline for 25 years. I might not know everything there is to know about this subject...but I know a fair amount.

Harbaugh is my heavy preference - if not him - I am open to the defensive guys (Frazier, Quinn, Bowles). My preference is probably Bowles/Quinn over Frazier (if you go defensive guy).

Hard pass. It's Harbaugh or bust for me.

Nice

I would have worded it differently, but I don't have a problem with the bolded statement. Unless your team is owned by a real football person like Jerry Jones, at some point in the chain of command of the organization you will have a football person reporting to and being hired by a non-football person. I don't expect the team owner to spend dozens of hours watching game film and talking to scouts in order to form a solid evaluation of the quarterback. I do expect the owner to understand when the person directly below him or her has been getting the same unacceptable results after repeated GM/Coach hires and make a change in how those positions are filled, and I expect him or her to identify the right outside consultants to help make those changes.

I think I heard from someone else - that Kreutz was offered the "standard" contract for that type of role...which happens to be $15/hr. I think that is what George implied - that Olin wasn't telling the whole story - just part of the story. But I am not sure and it went back to the question I asked earlier - without knowing what the going rate for that type of role is - I have no idea what to think (but I do get that any normal person would read that and go wow, pro football player gets paid an amount in-line with what you get paid to flip burgers at In and Out burger - that is crazy and Bears are cheap). The above may be true too - maybe other teams pay $100/hr. I literally have no idea, but until I have context it doesn't matter.

Lighten up...you will be a lot happier.

I am very excited about this class. I think this is going to be special.

Is there any empirical data to support the assertion that most employees ( i.e. blue collar/service industry/public sector) are doing fine without a union? I'd really like to see it.

He could have said that, but the reality of it isn't that different from what you described so I guess I don't care. Steve Cohen totally nailed his press conference, flattered all the fans who knew exactly what they wanted to hear. But then steve cohen had to hire a bunch of people and voila.

That is semantics - it is no different than what it is happening now. It is such a minor thing. I get it - from a PR perspective it would be a better win - but from a reality of the situation - they are basically doing that (Polian and George are going to make the hire and yeah Ted is in the room but Polian is who they are leaning on). They don't need to hire a president of football ops (who essentially is the GM vs. Asst). What they need to do is hire a really good GM (call it a GM, call it a pres, whatever). Hiring candidates is what it is - there are only so many ways to interview so yeah - it is going to be similar to the last time (which by the way is how many front offices, if not the majority go about their hiring) but obviously they made a relatively sizeable structural move (with the role now reporting into the owner...just like the "president" role that you would want would report in). By the way - I would have been even more happy if I did hear Ted wasn't involved and they were hiring a president of football ops. But it doesn't mean the reality is much different than George & Polian (with Ted in the room) hiring a GM who has full control and ownership of football operations, directly reporting into the owner. And unless the Bears came out and announced Bill B or Sean Payton were immediately coming - no matter what George did would have gotten picked on. Looks like Bears have already requested formal approval to interview Frazier. This is meaningful for two reasons - one, no matter what they do they have to get through minority candidates. 2 - Frazier is obviously an outstanding candidate. I only mention the minority piece because if they were going to go for Jim H - they have to go fast (I don't see Harbaugh move happening a month from now - if it happens it happens fast).

Your bias is keeping you from seeing reality in this case. There is no little guy or a nice guy trying to earn a living for his family in this case. Robin Hood would not be in the least interest in getting involved in this clash of the wealthy IMO. I can assure you that not all employees feel underappreciated or under-compensated. Actually, most employees are doing just fine for themselves without a union. A union is most helpful to the underperforming employee and helps him get the wage of the best employees IMO. I am admittedly biased in favor of starting the season on time.

Then I don’t think you understand what people are upset about. They fired Nagy and Pace. That was the easy part. Anyone could have done that. The issue is after hearing from George and Ted…the process to find the next GM and HC will be the exact same process that they used to find Pace and Nagy. Ted Phillips will once again be involved. Why should any fan expect a different result? The entire organization needs to be re-done. No one expects George to just sell the team. But until he keeps relying on Ted Phillips to have a say in football decisions, this is just another day in Bears Land.

Do you ever side with management in a labor dispute?

You just keep reading them...it will all become clear after you get over the nitpick bs.

Reread my posts. Don't try to put words in my mouth.

Yep...it's a balancing act of charging what the market will bear and breaking the camel's back.

No exaggeration. The market forces on wages are all downward. Businesses aren't charities. If they can get the job done for less they will and they will be more "successful". Wages go up because a business can't hire and retain qualified employees at their current levels.

7 seasons, 1 winning season. Whoever says Ryan Pace drafted well isn't paying attention.

Part of drafting is not wasting draft capital, and he wasted a ton in all of his trade ups. This is a team that needs depth all over the roster, and he was steady giving away potential depth.

Another good sign....Ted is not going to be part of the press conference.

that was awesome. NAILED it.

He can get a job there that pays more than the Bears were willing to pay Kruetz.

Thought it was an excellent read. I loved the quotes on getting the right coordinator - someone creative enough to build things around Fields…not to make him the next Manning or to just stick your system down their throat. That is the #1 reason Nagy is gone. He refused to tailor anything. He thought his system was amazing and really did nothing to actually build an offense around its players and their strengths. Because of it the squad never could figure out any identity. It could have maybe been a smash mouth unit - but that just wasn’t the system any of the main offensive coaches wanted. They were all too stubborn about what good looked like vs focusing on the best good for the Bears personnel.

Whose best interest? Fans? Owners? Players? Making a profit and increasing wealth for shareholders is how our society judges most companies as successful. Amazon, Tesla, Apple, and Walmart offer horrible pay and working conditions as they became industry leaders. More profits = more likely to be around for a long time. Owners tend to have longer careers in baseball than just about anyone. It's their industry. Like all American businesses they pay employees as little as they can. From an American business standpoint the best interest of baseball is anti player. I don't think we want that.

@Balta1701 I don't think either side is concerned about the fans, MiLB, employees, etc. Each side is looking out for their best interest and trying to make it look as pretty as possible. If anyone else does actually benefit, it's a accidental bonus.

I just can't understand or wrap my head around the idea of getting excited about the Bears future with Pace still calling the shots. He's responsible for 0 playoff wins in 7 seasons. He's made brutal roster decisions that have been well documented. He's made bad coaching hires and clearly can't evaluate the QB position which is the most important position in sports. A new head coach isn't going to solve those problems. Nagy needed to go 100%, but if Pace doesn't go....you're not solving your problem. The Bears are essentially going on a diet, but still ordering pizza, burgers, and cake.....but switching from regular coke to diet coke in hopes to save some calories.

I'm also anti owner.

My point and question is this: Does JR really want a winning franchise, or does he want to break the union? As far as the commissioner? He does what the owners want him to do. Again, as in the past, a work stoppage will hurt the White Sox more than other teams.