Chicago Bears: Coaching Carousel Now Down to Three Candidates

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With more and more teams finding their head coaches for the 2013 season, it seems like the Chicago Bears are finally nearing an end to their seemingly endless coaching search.

Give a lot of credit to Phil Emery, general manager of the Bears. Emery came in last season, made some great signings and trades, drafted well, and made a tough decision to let Lovie Smith go even after the 10-6 season the Bears had this year.

Now, just one year into his new job in Chicago, Emery was thrown into a cross country—and even out of the country—search for the man who would be the new leader and coach of the Chicago Bears.

Let's take a look at some of the recent developments that have lead to where the Bears stand today.

Coming into the coaching search, the Bears made it clear they were going to go after Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy. The Broncos set up interviews for him last week, while the Broncos had a first-round bye week before taking on the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round of the playoffs.

Now that the Broncos lost and are out of the playoffs, it was decision time for Mike McCoy on which team he would sign with and begin coaching.

Today, news came out that McCoy had told the San Diego Chargers that he was going to replace Norv Turner and become the next head coach for the Chargers.

With McCoy out of the picture, it seems there are three possible head coaching candidates left for the Bears—all of whom can make very good cases as to why they should be Lovie Smith's replacement.

Bruce Arians

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The first candidate is Bruce Arians. Arians most recently coached the Indianapolis Colts—when head coach Chuck Pagano was forced to leave the team this season and get treatment for health issues he was having.

Not only did Arians have a great season with the Colts and have a major hand in developing Andrew Luck this season, but he was also the offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh for some time and had a major hand in developing Ben Roethlisberger's play in the NFL.

Oh yeah, and he was also the first quarterback coach of Peyton Manning during his first stint with the Colts.

Arians makes sense because he knows how to run a team and knows how to get the most out of his offense—something the Bears disparately need. 

Marc Trestman

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The second candidate is Marc Trestman, a coach who nobody really knew of before this interview process began and is now a serious candidate to become a head coach in the NFL.

Trestman is a head coach in the Canadian Football League, where he has lead Montreal to the Grey Cup three of the last five seasons—winning two of them. That record in itself speaks for why he should be considered for the job, and why most people think that he is the front runner to be the next head coach of the Chicago Bears.

Trestman makes sense because he knows how to make a team win. He can get the most out of his whole team, and the Bears have had an issue with winning when it counts. That's one of the reasons Emery cited in firing Lovie Smith.

The Bears have made the playoffs just once in the last six seasons, and that was a time fans would like to forget. Remember, the Packers beat the Bears in Chicago to win the NFC and would go on to win the Super Bowl.

NOTE: The picture above is of the Grey Cup, the equivalent to the Super Bowl in the CFL. Since Trestman has had so much success there, it only seemed fitting to put it in the photo slide.

Darrell Bevell

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The final candidate for the head coaching job is Darrell Bevell, the offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks.

Bears fans should remember how fast paced and explosive the offense in Seattle is. The Seahawks drove down the field once in the fourth quarter to tie the game against the Bears this season, and another time in overtime to win the game.

Bevell was the quarterback for the Wisconsin Badgers in college and helped the team win their first Rose Bowl in school history under head coach Barry Alverez. 

Bevell worked with Brett Favre as the quarterbacks coach in Green Bay, and also worked with him in Minnesota where he was the offensive coordinator from 2006-2010. 

In 2011, he was hired as the offensive coordinator in Seattle, and this season took a 75th overall draft pick from his alma matter Russell Wilson to the second round of the playoffs—and almost pulled off the upset over the No. 1 seeded Atlanta Falcons.

Darrell Bevell makes sense for the Bears for a number of reasons. First of all, his work with Favre speaks for itself. He used to tear the Bears up year after year in Bevell's offense, something Bears fans will not soon forget.

Secondly, Bevell showed he can take raw talent and turn it into a winning formula, just like he did in Seattle this season. With an All-Pro wide receiver on the team, not to mention all the talent around him, Bevell would be a perfect fit to raise the offense in Chicago to one of the best in the league.

Who's It Going to Be?

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Well, those are the three finalists scheduled for second interviews with the Chicago Bears. Now that Seattle is out of the playoffs, Phil Emery can conduct his interviews right away and should have a new head coach for the Bears by the end of the week.

That being said, who do you want to see on the sidelines in Chicago next season? Let us know in the comments section, and we'll see who's right by the end of the week!