The Bears have been a mess for years now, and it’s time to right the ship through a tough leader who has experience in cleaning things up.
That leader should be Brian Flores.
Flores, the current defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, was hired as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins in 2019 after winning a Super Bowl with the Patriots.
Miami was coming off of two disastrous seasons under former head coach Adam Gase and needed Flores to guide the team through the mess.
His first season started 0-7 but finished 5-11.
Miami then drafted QB Tua Tagovailoa in 2020 and ended up finishing 10-6. It was a great turnaround, but rumblings over Flores’ treatment of Tua surfaced, which ended up being one of the reasons why, despite finishing 9-8 in 2021 and Flores becoming Miami’s first coach since Dave Wannstedt (2000 – 2004) to have two winning seasons, he was fired and replaced by Mike McDaniel.
In February 2022, Flores filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, the Dolphins and other teams, which is still taking place in the courts.
Since then, Flores worked as a senior defensive assistant/linebackers coach with the Steelers before moving to Minnesota, where he’s been the team’s defensive coordinator for the last two seasons.
During that same time, the Bears have been reeling with poor hires in head coaches Matt Nagy and Matt Eberflus and the selection of Mitch Trubisky. Chicago then put Justin Fields and Caleb Williams in a position where they have been running for their lives, literally, every game, especially Fields, who is now, thankfully, in Pittsburgh.
As of today, the Bears have a record of 36-50 between 2019-2024. Their last winning season was in 2018 (12-4).
On the bright side, they now have a franchise QB in Williams and good offensive weapons around him that can help him develop as the team moves into 2025. The defense has good parts as well but both sides need leadership, as evidenced by the team’s final 32 seconds in a winnable game against the Lions this past Thanksgiving.
This is why Brian Flores would make perfect sense for the team.
He gives them a strong leader who has been through the battles of a team rebuild. He also hails from the defensive side of the ball, which would help the Bears mold a good unit into a great one.
The NFL’s trendy propensity to hire offensive coordinators as head coaches sometimes blinds teams from real head coaches, especially ones who can lead a team through challenging periods.
Flores can and has done this
Critics will point to his contentious relationship and treatment of Tua, which is fair. Tua did it himself this past August when he rehashed the past while appearing on the Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.
“If you woke up every morning, and I told you that you suck at what you did, that you don’t belong doing what you do, that you shouldn’t be here, that this guy should be here, that you haven’t earned this right, and then you have somebody else come in and tell you, ‘Dude, you are the best fit for this. You are accurate, you are the best whatever, you are this, you are that.’ How would that make you feel, listening to one or the other? You see what I’m saying?
“(If) you have a terrible person that’s telling (you) things that you don’t want to hear or probably shouldn’t be hearing, you’re gonna start to believe that about yourself. That’s sort of what ended up happening. It’s basically been two years of training that out of, not just me, but a couple of the guys as well that have been here since my rookie year all the way ’til now.”
Tua’s feelings are obviously still raw.
And to be fair, he has flourished under McDaniel.
But his rant was personal and feels petty, especially since both parties have moved on to success.
Flores, to his credit, didn’t shy away from Tua’s comments.
“I’m genuinely, genuinely happy for the success that Tua has had,” Flores said, “and I really wish him nothing but the best.”
“Look, I’m human,” he continued. “So that hit me in a way that wasn’t…positive for me. But at the same time, I’ve got to use that and say, ‘Hey, how can I grow from that? How can I be better?’ And that’s really where I’m at from that standpoint. Do I feel like that’s me? No. But how can I grow from that situation and create a world where that’s not the case that anyone says that about Brian Flores?”
So Flores has admitted that he didn’t handle the situation properly, but he’s learned from it and his Vikings unit is thriving under this version of the young coach.
“I think there’s things that I could do better for sure, and I’ve grown in that way, and I’ve tried to apply the things that I could do better and the things that I’ve learned over the last two, three years,” said Flores.
This is the type of leader the Bears need, someone who has toughness and can rebuild but also someone who can admit when he’s wrong and do better. He’s also from Brooklyn, so being in a major city like Chicago isn’t intimidating.
Flores can hire a talented offensive coordinator to help Caleb and the offense develop, but the team needs true leadership, and that’s what he provides.
Hopefully, Flores isn’t blackballed from the head coaching ranks due to his lawsuit and has a second chance at a job.
If Chicago was smart, they would offer it to him.
