3 head coaching candidates the Bears need to avoid like the plague

Watching a loved one commit to a bad relationship is a painful feeling. As friends or family, we can do our part to steer them away from something that's bound to end badly, but in the end, they need to make their own decisions and mistakes.

Fans of the Chicago Bears have been living through the same cycle of helpless deja vu for years, because our favorite team has been attracted to the wrong people for years. Time and again, the Bears have made an uninspired head coaching hire, only to watch as the team, and the relationship, inevitably falls apart.

It's particularly dangerous to jump into a new relationship right after ending a bad one. The rebound is real, but whereas a person can choose to take some time for themselves after breaking up, a football team has no such luxury. The offseason is just a week away for the Bears, and the sooner they're able to find their new coach, the sooner they'll be able to put the Matt Eberflus era behind them and get a jumpstart on turning this franchise around.

Just because they need to move quickly doesn't mean the Bears should be rash, but recent reports from around the league indicate that in addition to some inspired choices, there are some dangerous landmines in this coaching search. Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is the preferred candidate by most fans, though there are others such as Mike Vrabel that also have their supporters within the fanbase.

Then there are the candidates that, frankly, don't make a bit of sense. Given the way the Bears have been perfectly imperfect at identifying the man for the job in the past, Bears fans are understandably terrified that they'll do it again. Consider this then a message in a bottle sent from the deserted island where most Bears fans have been forced to spend their time. Ryan Poles, Kevin Warren: if you're reading this, please don't make the mistake of hiring one of these three candidates.

Bears head coaching nightmare No. 1: Mike McCarthy, embattled Cowboys head coach

It seems that Mike McCarthy has only been mentioned in recent times as the punchline of a joke involving his perennially underachieving Cowboys, but he's also recently been brought up, for some reason, as a possible Matt Eberflus replacement.

Chase Daniel, who I can only figure was hazed mercilessly by Jay Cutler during his two years with the Bears (otherwise why would he put out a take like this?), talked about McCarthy as someone that would make sense for Chicago.

Forget for a moment that Bears fans are no fans of McCarthy for his long time coaching the Packers, and focus instead on his recent track record. Maybe it got lost in the shuffle as Cooper Rush was throwing interceptions against the Eagles on Sunday, but the Cowboys were a disaster even before losing Dak Prescott for the year.

Dallas has been trending down since getting lambasted by the Packers in last year's playoffs, an embarrassing 48-32 home loss that wasn't even as close as the score would indicate. The Cowboys fell behind 27-0 in that game, and they've continued their slide this year as they've stumbled to a 7-9 record. That's better than the Bears, but if that was the only requirement of a head coach, the candidate pool would be too large to fit in Soldier Field's 61,500 seats.

I'll give McCarthy credit for piloting the Cowboys to a 12-5 record in three straight years, but all he has to show for that is one playoff win in four tries. The Cowboys have had arguably the best defense and the best offensive line in the league while McCarthy has been there, yet they've never reached the NFC Championship Game. The Bears need someone whose team's perform best when it matters most.

Bears fans are scarred from Matt Eberflus' consistently terrible late-game decisions, and McCarthy isn't much better. Cowboys fans are still incensed about Dak Prescott's season-ending quarterback draw with no timeouts left against the 49ers in 2023, and that's just one example.

The Bears can't afford to settle for a coach whose best days are long behind him. McCarthy may or may not be with Dallas next year, but he definitely shouldn't be in Chicago.

Bears head coaching nightmare No. 2: former Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll

While we're on the subject of coaches that are no longer in their primes, let's move on to Pete Carroll, whose name inexplicably came up this week as someone who has shared mutual interest with the Bears.

Bringing this up in an interview would be an HR violation, but the Bears can't consider Carroll to be their next head coach for the same reason that Happy Gilmore said that the IRS couldn't take his grandma's house: he's too old. Carroll is 73, and the Bears need someone that's going to be able to be able to guide Caleb Williams through his prime years. Think Bill Walsh and Joe Montana, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, or Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. You don't need the next Sean McVay, but you also can't hire Sean Connery (he died in 2020 at the age of 90).

Even if you take Carroll's age out of the equation, his recent coaching record doesn't inspire confidence that he can turn the Bears around. In his final three years in Seattle, Carroll went 7-10, 9-8, and 9-8. Bears fans would be thrilled to be hovering around .500 after the cataclysm of this season, but we need to be shooting higher than that. Hiring Carroll because of what he did over a decade ago would be just like the Jets trading for an over-the-hill Aaron Rodgers.

Carroll is a West Coast guy that has found most of his success near the Pacific Ocean as the coach at USC and Seattle. Would bordering Lake Michigan feel like home? When winter hits and the cold wind starts blowing, I don't think it would.

Even at his advanced age, Carroll's youthful enthusiasm is undeniable, and his work in engineering the Legion of Boom makes me think that he could work wonders with Tyrique Stevenson and the rest of the Bears secondary. Even in the best case scenario though, he'd be little more than a stopgap before the Bears hopped right back on the coaching carousel in two or three years. This franchise needs stability, and hiring a 73-year-old coach that hasn't reached a conference championship game in over a decade isn't the way to achieve that.

Bears head coaching nightmare No. 3: Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores

Brian Flores has done an objectively fantastic job with Minnesota, and he's a huge reason why the Vikings are 14-2 and just a game away from securing the 1-seed in the NFC. The Vikings are short on big names on the defensive side of the ball, yet they've given up the fourth-fewest points in the league while tying for the most turnovers forced and the third-most sacks.

Unlike McCarthy and Carroll, Flores is only 43, meaning he has the potential to be around for a while. His three-year stint as head coach of the Miami Dolphins, specifically his handling of Tua Tagovailoa, leads me to believe that he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Caleb Williams and this offense.

Tua isn't a guy that's known for shooting off his mouth, so for him to come out and call Flores "a terrible person" while criticizing his coaching style says a lot. The Bears need someone that's going to build Caleb's confidence, not crush it, and they can't afford to take the chance that Flores has seen the error of his ways.

The Bears made the mistake of believing that just because someone is a good defensive coordinator, it also means they'd be a good head coach. We've seen with Matt Eberflus that success as one isn't indicative of success as the other.

It's not reactionary to Eberflus' failings to say that the Bears need an offensive mind to be their next head coach. Most of the teams that have had the greatest success in recent years have been led by offensive-minded coaches. Just look at the Flores' Vikings, who are led by former Super Bowl-winning offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell. He's turned Sam Darnold into a Pro Bowler, and he looks like a lock to win Coach of the Year as a result. That's the kind of coach the Bears need to be looking for.