Lovie Unloved: Criticism Of Bears Coach Has Become Excessive

Chicago Bears fans are passionate creatures. In 2009, the team rated as the league's fourth-most popular in a Nielsen Group study--despite a 7-9 campaign.

Perhaps that explains the firestorm that threatens to swallow up Bears head coach Lovie Smith on the eve of the season opener Sunday against the Detroit Lions. Smith's perpetual optimism and reticence to open up with the Chicago media have worn on the patience of both fans and media members. Rcik Morrissey of the Chicago Sun-Times is the most vocal and most recent major columnist to call for Smith's dismissal.

Smith's inability--or refusal--to craft a strong and forthright public image is clearly a part of the problem. So, too, is the team's streak of three straight seasons without a playoff berth since losing Super Bowl XLI to Indianapolis.

There are reasons enough to deride Smith, who has occasionally seemed closed-minded about adjustments to struggling offensive and defensive units in recent years. Still, some of the recent harshness can be accounted for only by conceding that Chicagoans simply don't like Smith. The stoic coach is the anti-Ditka, a man who most simply do not believe is a "Chicago guy" on the sidelines. Personal enmity is the only realistic justification for the sort of vitriol that has engulfed Smith since the start of a winless preseason.

In truth, however, Smith has had little with which to work over the past three seasons. The vaunted defense that carried Chicago to the big game in 2006 quickly fell apart, due largely to factors beyond Smith's control. Injuries took a heavy toll, costing defensive centerpieces Mike Brown, Charles Tillmann and Brian Urlacher a season each. 

Meanwhile, rather than systematically reinforcing the defensive unit, Bears management made a series of myopic moves intended to shore up a poor offense. Adding aged linemen through free agency proved a failed strategy, as did the choice to keep running back Cedric Benson at the expense of Thomas Jones. 

Smith, of course, has input in personnel decisions. Ultimately, though, the majority of the Bears' recent problems have been the result of miserable player evaluations by the management team of Jerry Angelo and Ted Phillips. To pin the team's failing talent level on Smith is to concentrate the blame too much. Strategically and emotionally, Chicago seems fine. It is the endemic incompetence of the entire talent acquisition department of the Bears franchise that deserves to be questioned; Smith is no more than a convenient scapegoat.