Hiring leaders with rings has never been Bears’ way

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The McCaskeys seem to think there’s a Mike Ditka hiding on every coaching staff or in every front office. | Getty Images

Updated: February 10, 2012 8:35AM

Mike Ditka is to blame for the Bears’ mess. Well, not really. But he’s a good place to start if you’re trying to figure out how the team got into the bad habit of setting its sights low.

Ditka was an assistant coach in Dallas when Bears owner George Halas picked him to be his head coach in 1982. And we all know what happened three years later ­— iconic NFL team, iconic coach, iconic moustache, etc.

However you choose to look at Ditka’s hiring — as genius or luck — it has informed the Bears as they’ve attempted to match the success of the 1985 team.

Every time they have a significant job opening, they see a chance to hire a coordinator or a front-office type not quite at the top of the food chain. Somewhere out there, the thinking goes, the next Ditka is chomping on his gum, though perhaps without his demanding personality.

Here’s the problem: There is/was only one Ditka, but the McCaskeys seem to think there’s one hiding on every NFL coaching staff or in every front office.

This is how the family looks at the world, through the fuzzy lenses of long ago and with an eye toward saving a buck or two. Look at their hires over the years. Almost everyone was in a lesser position before the Bears offered him a job.

Lovie Smith, Dick Jauron and Dave Wannstedt all were defensive coordinators before the Bears hired them to be their head coach.

Jerry Angelo was the director of player personnel for the historically woebegone Tampa Bay Buccaneers when the Bears named him general manager, a position they finally created after years of going without one.

Is it possible for the McCaskeys to ever aim high? Apparently not. This is how George Halas did it, and when you invoke Halas’ name in Lake Forest, it tends to stop all conversation. ‘‘If it was good enough for Papa Bear . . .’’

Not an A-lister to be found

The team is in the market for a new general manager after 11 years of Angelo. The list of possible replacements reads like a Who’s Who list, as in Who? and Who?

According to the Sun-Times, top candidates include a bunch of player personnel directors, some pro personnel directors and a college scouting director, most of whom you’ve never heard of. Is there a GM in the house?

It was rumored that Ravens director of player personnel Eric DeCosta was the Bears’ top choice, but he announced Friday he’s staying in Baltimore.

I’m not saying the Bears should run out and hire future Hall of Famer Bill Polian as their next general manager (who’d want a six-time NFL Executive of the Year award winner?), but is it possible to find somebody who actually has done the job before?

Or, I know this is wishful thinking, but did they consider giving Bill Cowher both the GM and head-coaching jobs? Why are the Bears loath to give total power to one person? It’s not as if their formula for success has worked. It has been 26 years since the Bears’ last Super Bowl title. The Bulls have six titles in that timespan, the White Sox and the Hawks one each. The Cubs are in their own category.

Is there something wrong with finding a coach who has won a Super Bowl as a head coach? A Jon Gruden, for example?

The Bears always seem to be on a diet when it’s time to feast.

Cubs tried it — why not Bears?

The hot phrase in sports these days is ‘‘culture change.’’ When the Cubs hired Theo Epstein as their president of baseball operations, it was because they deemed they had a culture that was in desperate need of changing. Out with the old and in with the new, and all that.

The Bears have been in need of a culture change for years but have resisted, whether out of nostalgia or cheapness or both.

It’s true that somebody had to take a chance on Epstein before he became Theo Epstein, but the Bears never seem to want to hire a fully formed star. The Cubs, after 103 years of failure, finally got serious and hired a man who had won two World Series with Boston.

Nobody’s a sure thing. Mike Holmgren, who went from huge success in Green Bay to something less than that in Seattle and Cleveland, is a perfect example. But it’d be nice to experience, just once, what it feels like to have a star coach or general manager come to town to work.

An impossible dream, I know.