It was a few days ago, sure. But what do you all think of the move? My view is... I like him as a person, but I think he had a tough time balancing the team. This is in spite of having an All Pro receiver in Brandon Marshall, an elite QB to throw to him in Cutler, and a quality workhorse running back in Matt Forte. Not only quality at the skill positions, but they sure seem to have spent a lot of high (1st round is high) draft picks on offensive line players. He couldn't put together a strong offense, even after hiring some prominent offensive coaches. Ditka says the Bears should have kept him. They did go 10-6 after all. That was after a 7-1 start, though, so they ended up 3-5 and out of the playoffs. I think we all want to see the team go 7-1 the first half and 7-1 the second half, too. Lovie's teams don't seem to play all 16+ games.
I was OK with the firing on the basis that Phil Emery is now the person chiefly responsible for the football success of the franchise and should therefore be able to pick a head coach who he believes gives the team the best chance at success. It's seems to be important to many fans and media members that the case be made that Smith "deserved" to be fired. For me, this is a waste of time because deserves got nothin' to do with it. During his 9 seasons with the Bears, I never felt that Smith was given superior talent. Averaging it out, he was given kind of middlin'-ish talent IMO. The fact that his teams averaged 9-7 per regular season means to me that he got a little bit more out of what he was given than should have been expected. He did a good job. I wish him all them best.
Who wasn't superior talent? Urlacher? Marshall? Hester? Cutler? Forte? All the 1st picks used on offensive line players? At one point, they had two or three tight ends who I thought were really good.
