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Ranking the Chicago Bears' biggest missed coaching opportunities

Originally posted on Chicago Bears on SI
By Pete Martuneac | Last updated Jan 17, 2025 2:55 PM ET

It's been twelve years since the Chicago Bears fired Lovie Smith immediately following a season in which his team won 10 games, and they are about to hire their fifth head coach since then. With such an abysmal record at hiring head coaches, it's little wonder that the Bears have been the NFL's punching bag for the last decade.

But what makes some of these poor head coaching hires even worse is the missed opportunity to hire other, far more worthy coaches. This was the case in 2022 when a division rival walked away with a popular choice for this year's Coach of the Year award.

Which of these hires should rattle Bears fans the most? Let's get into the rankings.

3. Matt Nagy over Mike Vrabel - 2018

This one comes first as there's still significant questions about Vrabel's capabilities as head coach, even now as he's the next head coach for the New England Patriots. After all, he was fired by the Tennessee Titans and successful head coaches typically don't get fired.

Still, he led the Titans to multiple playoff wins over the course of five years, even to the conference championship where they narrowly lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. In contrast, Matt Nagy's playoff legacy is the infamous 'double-doink' and he never won a playoff game.

2. Matt Eberflus over Kevin O'Connell and Mike McDaniel - 2022

The hiring of Matt Eberflus remains shrouded in mystery to this day. The Bears hired Ryan Poles as their new GM on January 25th. Two days later, Eberflus was hired as head coach. Two days is clearly not enough time to run a head coaching search, leading to speculation that Poles was given a shortlist by team CEO George McCaskey and not allowed to deviate from it (both Poles and Eberflus have denied this).

Regardless, the hiring of Eberflus never made much sense. The Bears had a promising young quarterback (sound familiar?), and hiring a little-known defensive coordinator rubbed many people the wrong way. To make matters worse, two offensive minds hired in that same cycle, Minnesota's Kevin O'Connell and Miami's Mike McDaniel, went on to immediately turn their teams into playoff contenders.

1. Marc Trestman over Bruce Arians and Andy Reid - 2013

Arguably Chicago's worst head coaching hire in recent memory, the pain from this decision is compounded knowing that Super Bowl LV champion Bruce Arians really wanted this job and was even a finalist.

Even worse, future Hall of Fame coach Andy Reid was available that offseason. but the Bears didn't even talk to him despite it being an open secret that the Eagles were preparing to part ways with him.

Now it's fair to speculate whether either Arians or Reid would have ever won a Super Bowl had they gone to Chicago in 2013, but what is almost certain is that they would have made better decisions than who the Bears ultimately hired: a guy who had to go north to the Canadian Football League to get a head coaching gig, despite decades of experience.