Bears fire John Fox after three seasons

Posted by Darin Gantt on January 1, 2018, 8:54 AM EDT
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Of all the firings to come today, this one might have been the most #asexpected.

According to multiple reports, the Bears have fired coach John Fox.

Fox was 14-34 in three seasons with the Bears, and his preference for veterans wasn’t and isn’t a good mix for building around a young quarterback such as Mitchell Trubisky.

The 62-year-old Fox didn’t have nearly the success in Chicago that he did in Carolina (73-71) or Denver (46-18), as he went to Super Bowls in both those stops.

While his 133-123 record isn’t great, he had success with quarterbacks such as Jake Delhomme and a declining Peyton Manning, and was able to punch above his weight a few times when tasked with rebuilding teams.

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49 responses to “Bears fire John Fox after three seasons”

  7. Nice man, lousy coach.
    Let’s get someone who will instill discipline. Bears had way too many penalties. Need someone young with an offensive mind.

  15. 3 years of the John Fox era translated into the last Bears possession yesterday. 4 downs from the 2 yard line and the Bears get 1 yard. Enough is enough: The 3d in 5 years rebuild began this am. Just not sure that all this Trubisky noise was warranted or that the Bears will get someone who is a better builder from the floor up. Most of all wish the Bears would get sold by their current owners. To them cash flow is much more important than football competence.

  17. NFC North is a McCarthy sandwich — both Coach Fox, below him, and Coach Caldwell, above him. gone!

    So is Coach McCarthy the entre’ to be served up next?

    (Hope not.)

  18. Nice man, lousy coach.
    Let’s get someone who will instill discipline. Bears had way too many penalties. Need someone young with an offensive mind.
    *****************************************************************************
    90-100 yards in penalties and multiple turnovers per game will never get them anywhere…and forget about ever going with a hard count, their O-line could never handle that!

  21. iowahbr says:
    January 1, 2018 at 9:38 am

    3 years of the John Fox era translated into the last Bears possession yesterday. 4 downs from the 2 yard line and the Bears get 1 yard. Enough is enough: The 3d in 5 years rebuild began this am. Just not sure that all this Trubisky noise was warranted or that the Bears will get someone who is a better builder from the floor up. Most of all wish the Bears would get sold by their current owners. To them cash flow is much more important than football competence.
    ********************************************************************************
    The $$$ for next year is ALREADY in the bank! First we suffered through Wrigley ownership of the Cubs, now it’s the McCaskey clans’ turn with the Bears…they are totally clueless and Ted Phillips brings no value added at all.

  22. xlvbonanzai says:
    January 1, 2018 at 9:25 am
    Ok great. Now Packers, fire Dom and let’s get Vic Fangio signed as our D coordinator so we can start winning some damn Super Bowls in Green Bay.
    ———————-
    LOL.
    The Gumby fans are happy and bragging about just being named the preseason Super Bowl winners in polls.
    The actual games don’t matter.

  24. olefballcoach says:
    January 1, 2018 at 9:01 am
    Another coach who is a great person but not a great coach!!
    ——————-
    So I see this line used about coaches.
    Is there ever a bad person who is an head coach?
    If there are, who are they?

    I would say all NFL head coaches are good people.

  25. Not sold on Fangio in GB as the D coordinator.

    Fox isn’t a good HC. That’s a given but it’s also not his fault the Bears pulled something so stupid as they did to get Trubisky. They gave up a lot of capital to “secure” him that they didn’t need to and that’s something a new coach – ANY new coach is going to need to turn this around.

    Usually when you see such stupidity by the FO – the next coach is some no name that carries then through 2-3 seasons of barely 500 ball, till the draft picks come back that you gave up and then they go get some other re-tread coach that does decent with a full team and picks.

  26. When the Vikings and Coach Zim are hunting Superbowls and Coach of the Year trophies, the rest of the north is finally seeing that they need to make changes to keep up.

  27. PresidentTrumpIsRightRespectYourCountryAndFlag says:
    January 1, 2018 at 9:11 am
    Why hasnt Adam lost Case been fired yet?
    The dolphins are a continuous dumpster fire.

    ———————

    Always good to hear from a fan of dumpster fires.

  28. Diehard Pats fan from the Boston suburbs living in Chicago where my wife is from. When Fox got hired in 2015, my wife was ecstatic and i laughed. I said just watch, he will make no adjustments, chew gum like Mr. Ed, and then had this deer in headlights look, oh and Cutler will still be average at best. 3 years later my wife said “when are we firing this SOB?!” Happy new year indeed for Chicago fans. Maybe the McCaskeys will stop worrying about MONEY and pump some cash into finding a solid GM/Coach and undo this cluster.

  29. Rumor was Jim Harbaugh was waiting for that job to open. Don’t be surprised if he’s the next coach of the Bears.

  31. conormacleod says:
    January 1, 2018 at 10:32 am
    When the Vikings and Coach Zim are hunting Superbowls and Coach of the Year trophies, the rest of the north is finally seeing that they need to make changes to keep up.

    ————————–

    Pump the brakes there sparky. Packers won more playoff games last year than Zimmer has in his entire career.

  33. Another coaching bloodbath. New England and Pittsburgh have proven that keeping a coach and getting him players is the key to repeated double-digit win seasons.

  34. I say this, sadly, for the umpteenth time: As long as the McClaskey family holds the reins to Da Bearss they will be mediocre.
    The family thinks of the team as a cash cow and is NOT willing to do what needs to be done to make them at first respectable and then a force to be taken seriously.

    I say this as an old coot AND as a Pats fan who still shivers when he remembers that awful January day in 1986. The Bears ARE pro football to old coots like me and to see them stuck in this mediocrity is sad, and I can’t even imagine what it’s like for their long-time (3 or 4 generations back) fans.

    Bears fans deserve better – MUCH better.

  36. John Fox is a good coach. His wins and losses are a reflection of his GM. He took two different teams to the super bowl, so you can’t question his ability to coach. The Bears just don’t have a GM that is good enough to build a winning roster. Ryan Pace left New Orleans and the Saints started having much better drafts without him in the building.

  37. The coach wont matter when you have a GM that trades all the draft picks to move up to the #2 spot from #3 for a average (at best) 2nd round talent QB.
    A GM that got rid of our pro bowl kicker because he cost to much yet paid a garbage back up QB 18.5 million for 4 starts.
    We have no receivers (other than his other first round bust) on the roster yet let a another pro bowl player walk out of town. The id10t will do it again this year with kyle fuller.

    The President of the Bears is a bean counter that knows NOTHING about football and every GM he has hired has proven this.Every one is somehow worse than the last one he fired.

  38. The Bears have been cursed every since that 10-6 is just not good enough nonsense. It could very well be 20-25 years before the Bears see 10-6 again.

  40. Huh, hadn’t even thought about Harbaugh to the Bears. Fox certainly should have been gone, but I wonder if the McCaskeys are capable of handling Harbaugh’s antics.

  42. screamingyellowzonkers says:
    January 1, 2018 at 10:28 am
    olefballcoach says:
    January 1, 2018 at 9:01 am
    Another coach who is a great person but not a great coach!!
    ——————-
    So I see this line used about coaches.
    Is there ever a bad person who is an head coach?
    If there are, who are they?

    I would say all NFL head coaches are good people.

    2 11 Rate This
    ————————–
    Bobby Petrino, Brian Kelly.

  44. Projections of a Rams type ’18 turnaround for the Bears under new coaching seem excessive to say the least. The roster isn’t there and there is a losing culture engendered by the past two coaches that it will take some time to purge.

    That said, if GM Ryan Pace can have a good draft and reverse some really bad ’17 decisions in FA (Glennon, Sims, Cooper, Wheaton), there should be enough pieces in place to consider a .500 record o-able with a wildcard playoff berth as the stretch goal. The biggest dependencies being player health (all of Fox’s strength and conditioning staff also need to get pink slips), and reversing the Bears’ abysmal in-division and in-conference performances under Fox.

  45. “Is there ever a bad person who is an head coach? If there are, who are they?”

    Nick Saban, Greg Schianno

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