Ranking the 7 NFL Head Coaching Hires

John Fox, Chicago Bears

It’s not that John Fox has been bad, it’s just that he’s not a team savior. This hiring would be much higher on our list if the team destination wasn’t such a train wreck in general. The Bears are a complete mess on the personnel front, with a complete defensive meltdown since team legend linebacker Brian Urlacher retired after the 2012 season and a full-on offensive implosion annually thanks to quarterback Jay Cutler’s DGAFitude.

The silver lining to all of this is that the Bears defense has been historically terrible the past two years, averaging 100.03 Adjusted Defensive NEP per season (high numbers are bad for Defensive NEP). John Fox has been a defensive-minded coach his whole career, so this offers a chance for him to rebuild a shoddy defense and make it just as dynamic of a weapon as he made the Panthers and Broncos defenses before this. The drawback? He hired defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, whose defensive identity is based in a 3-4 front; the Bears have never run a 3-4 front in the history of the franchise, and their personnel simply isn’t built for it. If they shift to a new defense, there will be even more hiccups for this franchise in its transitional years.

However, if anyone can figure out the enigmatically moody Jay Cutler, it will be former Broncos’ quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator Adam Gase. He engineered historically impressive offenses with Peyton Manning for the last few years, so one would believe he can at least make Cutler passable. Still, the fits for the team and staff are so odd, I just can’t put John Fox to the Bears any higher.