It's Not Time To Sack Smith. Yet!

Listening to the various radio stations around the Chicago area, there have been several announcers and even more callers that think that if the Bears fail to make the playoffs at the end of the 2009 regular season, Lovie Smith, along with General Manager Jerry Angelo should be fired.  All of this came as a result of the Bears 45-10 loss at the hands of the Cincinnati Bengals, their worst loss in ten years.  What many people fail to realize is that this isn’t a pattern (yet) and this team is not like the St. Louis Rams or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  They usually don’t get blown out and they have one three of six games this season.

So before pulling the plug on Smith look at these facts.  The first is that it’s only one game.  If the Bears were getting blown out on a week to week basis then it would be time to take a serious look at Smith and how he is using his players.  But it’s only one game.  Granted it was a bad game but it was just one game.  If we want heads to roll let’s wait until they lose three games like that.  Then there would be problems.

Another reason to not start calling for Smith’s head is that he still has several years left on his contract and if the Bears were to let him go at the end of this season, they would have to pay him an estimated nine million dollars and it’s not like the Bears to do something like that.  I would suspect that unless there is a complete collapse and the Bears don’t win another game this season, thanks to the financial obligation that they have with Smith.

So I wouldn’t think that smith will be gone anytime soon.  One person who could be gone, however, may be Angelo.  Since coming to Chicago, Angelo has missed on most of his draft picks (see Dan Bazuin and Michael Okwo to name a few) and some of his free agent acquisitions.  He has also made strange deals (like getting rid of Thomas Jones and acquiring untested Frank Omiyale) and some of his dealings have caused the Bears problems both in the past and currently.  He is good at drafting defense but has had his problems drafting offensive players and this has hurt the Bears.

So don’t think that Smith should go after just one big loss.  He has time to right the ship and get the Bears back on a winning track and get to the playoffs.  The Bears are only 3-3 and can win the NFC North still.  Let’s just wait and see what happens.  But if the Bears end the season by not making the playoffs and posting a record worse than .500, then it’s time to start thinking about making some changes.