In light of the most recent media session, in which Flus and Poles both highly praised and greatly applauded their “culture” a very familiar feeling began to come over me. But, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Oh yeah, we’ve already seen this movie 3 separate times over the past two decades. And we all know how it ends. In case you missed out on the previous installments in the franchise, here’s a recap for you:
Nagy era: https://www.chicagobears.com/news/pagano-lauds-nagy-for-culture-he-s-created
Fox era: https://www.espn.com/blog/chicago/bears/post/_/id/4700652/john-foxs-navy-seal-stepfather-taught-him-the-value-of-teamwork
Trestman era: https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2014/6/9/5794386/chicago-bears-marc-trestman-changing-the-culture-locker-room
Oddly enough, it’s quite hard to find any popular articles or blog pieces about the team’s “culture” during Lovie’s Tenure. It’s almost like instead of telling everyone he built a good, winning culture- he just let the results speak for themselves.
What I do know is, if super bowls were won and lost via locker-room culture evaluations, the Bears would be a certified dynasty.
7 comments
When I think of good locker room culture, I can’t help but think of Justin fields. Now here’s a guy that has shown he can step up and lead this team in the direction we need, with a positive attitude and stellar play.
Fox really did have a great culture. He took over a fractious locker room and brought them together quickly. In 2016, he had a 1-6 team talking to the press about making the playoffs! No lie.
Nagy had badass culture in 2018, Club Dub was amazing. It is easier when you’re winning, but he fully deserved that COTY imo. The double doink broke him, and the culture seemed to steadily decline from there. By 2019 he seemed to resent the players.
Eberflus’ culture was showing real cracks a few weeks ago, but now I wonder whether it was just Claypool.
It doesn’t help that we aren’t re-signing our good players. Fine, they aren’t elite. So what, keep your good players man, build on something instead of starting over all the time!
I’ll take winning football games over culture all day every day and twice on Sunday.
When someone *tells* you what they’re like, don’t believe them.
When someone *shows* you what they’re like, *believe them*.
Lovie’s culture criticism revolves around his calm demeanor, meatball fans thought he was too passive and didn’t inspire the team to play hard.
Culture shows up on the field. There’s no reason to think the bears have a culture issue. If one develops, you gotta do a raiders. But the bears culture seems fine. The reason it’s a glaring question is because the team isn’t winning, and that can cause culture issues. That’s all
This is the line they must give to ownership or the consultants to get the job because they keep hiring the same type of guys.
It’s a product of the times. The idea of “Culture” didn’t come up a lot 20 years ago because nobody gave a fuck, and “culture” wasn’t a word that made fans balls tingle.
Also,these coaches aren’t going to spend 25 minutes in a press conference laying out every little decision they make and there is no fucking reason they should have too. It would be super unprofessional to look into a camera and say “Yeah we fired him cause he’s an asshole”.
I’ve worked a lot of places and not ridding yourself of toxic people or people that just don’t fit, only causes more problems. I say kudos to the Bears for identifying the shit sticks (Williams, Claypool, Walker) and having the balls to just move on regardless of cost or public image. I’ve done PR it’d be easier to just keep the assholes and avoid the press beating.