Chisoxfn

A lot of smoke out their that Ballard wanted to tear everything down and it upset the McCaskey's. However, Hub Arkush (who is typically extremely anti-Bear) has indicated it is all BS and those are all leaks from the respective candidates trying to save face. http://chicagofootball.com/2015/01/09/hub-...aq1xrfl/?page=1

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 09:23 PM) Why doesn't Olaseni play more? No idea. They should have kept going to him early in the 2nd half. They didn't and really lost all levels of aggression.

QUOTE (LDF @ Jan 1, 2015 -> 04:40 PM) i was just looking up on when the airing of Season 4 of Sherlock BBC. the xmas special is still to come, when i do not know. it is kinda of hard to find a exact time and date. i also found out season 4 will not start till next xmas 2016. with a tragedy and shocker. Dang, i thought it was starting right around now. D'oh.

Ughh....reminded me of Iowa last year. Get a nice lead at halftime, get f***ing blown out in 2nd half. Pathetic.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 02:50 PM) well that makes me like him less. His job is to get the team to the playoffs and the Superbowl, not to appease meatheads. Evidently it was a fake tweet.

@BobWarja: I realize my credibility is in question since my source was wrong about Ballard, so take this with a grain of salt, but next Bears coach... @BobWarja: ...will be Todd Bowles. No, not the same source.

Dirk Koetter is going to OC for the Bucs. Good hire by Lovie.

This was the commentary from the person who scooped the Pace hiring.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 02:57 PM) If there is a murder with a dismembered corpse, do we need to see the corpse for the news organization to report the killing? Bush decided that news organizations didn't need to show pictures of fallen soldiers arriving in flag draped coffins. Now answer my question. Does your employer have the right to put your life in danger? Well, if you are a member of the military or police force, etc, than you are and will be put in severe danger.

‏@ZachZaidman New #Bears GM Ryan Pace familiar with coaching candidate Adam Gase, who is married to the daughter of Saints assistant head coach Joe Vitt

Jason La Canfora ‏@JasonLaCanfora 1h1 hour ago- The first words Pace spoke in his interview " I'm here to beat Green Bay".

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 02:31 PM) I realize that Alex Smith doesn't throw it down field very often, and I won't argue that he's elite, but how many teams would prefer to have or would be a much better team with Alex Smith as their QB? There are very few guys you can call elite, even if you want to stretch the definition to include a guy like, say, Philip Rivers or Matthew Stafford. He is a good QB. I am actually a pretty big Alex Smith fan, but to do what they have done with such limited WR play is pretty impressive.

QUOTE (shipps @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 02:19 PM) Why couldnt he have slid out of any football role before the search? I don't think he ever really had a football role, other than involvement in the GM. I think this time they realized George was going to be much more involved and they were going to hire a football consultant to help and really drive the process home and it sounds like George and Ernie liked pace (Ernie recommending and George being blown away).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 02:17 PM) Bernstein and Hub both keep insisting that this is the case, he will quietly slide out of any football role in the next few months Does anyone really think that Emery didn't have full control? Just curious, cause I absolutely think Emery was fully in charge. I think the only real thing that changed this year is that they fully admitted it and took much more insights from real NFL consultants.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 02:14 PM) It's not even a secret anymore that Lovie had a heavy hand in drafting after the super bowl and it led to the Afalavas and Okwos. Ultimately Angelo makes the pick and it goes on his record, but I absolutely agree that Lovies new contract and subsequent draft failures are not coincidental And pre that, Angelo had built one hell of a football team (well Angelo the drafter and Lovie the coach). Once that changed, things went downhill and pretty quickly.

I fully expected that. I think Emery did as well as did Angelo (until Lovie received his extention at which point Lovie got more control and coincidentally, Angelo started to struggle).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 02:06 PM) Lmao this is such an about face for you. Before this hire all you could do was complain same ole same ole Bears don't hire anyone they don't know blah blah. Now when they do, you act like Ballard would have been good to come in and fix it because he has been here and knows where the skeletons are and the McCaskeys want all the power. Yeah, I thought you wanted someone from the outside.

QUOTE (shipps @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 01:53 PM) I believe what Gabriel said. He knows Ballard and probably did talk with him. I'm surprised he gave that info up. LOL Bernstein has said it was more that Ballard spent too much time on organization and not enough on roster where Pace knocked it out and spent his time on roster. My problem is, no GM in the world can do it on their own. We need as many bright football people in the building as possible. Just hearing some of this stuff makes me cringe because in theory, Ballard has seen how it is done in halas and how it is done elsewhere and essentially knows what is broke in Chicago and could legitimately offer ways of fixing it. Not knocking Pace, just disappointing if it was the fact that Ballard was more negative and more pointed about what needed to change internally (in addition to roster...but maybe not as focused on roster). Part of me says the roster is largely a work in process anyway which starts with the draft, so how much time should you really spend on it other than maybe giving your opinion of systems that you like, your general view of the players, etc, and clearly an opinion of what went wrong on the field last year. I dont' want someone coming in and making an imaginary roster or something. That is a bunch of fluff anyway. I just picture Pace going...see I trade Cutler for Rodgers and than do this and that and bam...superbowl contender. Not really but kind of like that and McCaskey and Phillips going, oh we can get Rodgers...oh yeah that would be great.

Some say Ballard spent more time talking about the structure within the organization that needed to be put in place and less time discussing the roster and those components (which is understandable). Doesn't sound like Bears liked it or were ready for that much change. A lot of this I think is Gabriel speculating based upon past conversations he has had with Ballard about it (I don't think they have talked recently).

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 01:44 PM) Greg Gabriel: "Chris Ballard knew where the problems were in the organization, and what he told the Bears on how to fix it, the Bears didn't like"... He also mentioned that Sean Payton respects Pace as much as anyone else in the league and has for a long time. Confirmed Bears probably wanted to break from the past. I totally believe Gabriel's first quote, haha. I hope it isn't true but I could very much see it being the case. I could imagine Ballard came in and told it like it was and what was needed to fix and they didn't like it cause it impacted too many within the organization. Pace came in and had a good pitch, which wasn't near as negative on the organization and it blew them away. Hopefully I'm wrong but I don't find that very alarming. The settling point is Acorsi was involved too.

Greg Gabriel: "Chris Ballard knew where the problems were in the organization, and what he told the Bears on how to fix it, the Bears didn't like"... He also mentioned that Sean Payton respects Pace as much as anyone else in the league and has for a long time. Confirmed Bears probably wanted to break from the past.

Now this gets me excited (maybe, while never having a direct title, he was involved in the draft) Peggy Kusinski ‏@peggykusinski 2m2 minutes ago Per #Saints media new #Bears Pace responsible for unearthing guys like jermon bushrod, jahri evans, marques colston and pierre thomas.

Albert Breer ‏@AlbertBreer 10s10 seconds ago Rival exec on Bears' hire of GM Ryan Pace: "Excellent. Coaches love him. Good pro guy. Hard worker. Very conscientious." Larry Holder ‏@LarryHolder 5m5 minutes ago Loomis on Pace at '14 Senior Bowl: "I kind of feel like he's been our secret for a while, but look, he's a great, young personnel director"

For those doubting Ernie's involvement:

QUOTE (shipps @ Jan 8, 2015 -> 01:27 PM) He is the guy that was waiting in the hallway for a couple hours for his interview earlier. I bet that was an initial shock. Got to hope Pace was ready. Talk about moving swiftly.