Bears need to avoid Oakland-like tension

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Buddy Mike Florio over at ProFootballTalk.com has an excellent summary look at the goings-on in Oakland with the Raiders search for a new general manager. It is a scenario the Bears desperately need to avoid but appear to be skirting dangerously close to similarly thin ice.

The nub of the situation hinges around Hue Jackson, coming off his first year as head coach and now involved in the process of selecting his boss -- much the same as Lovie Smith now is for Jerry Angelos successor.

The name on the front-burner there is Green Bay football operations director Reggie McKenzie, who is a leading name in the Bears deliberations, sources have confirmed for CSNChicago.com.

The problem is that Jackson has had a direct line to team ownership and now the organization is looking at bringing in a GM. But where will that individual fall on the org chart visavis Jackson?

Chairman George McCaskey has been explicit in delineating the lines of authority. The GM in consultation with the president and ownership selects the head coach -- except that now the head coach is in consultation for the hiring of the general manager, exactly backwards from the way it should be and the Bears lay it out.

Mike cites some very clear examples where a dysfunctional coach-GM relationship has blown up the franchise (Kansas City, San Diego).

What makes the Oakland situation worth watching in Chicago is that former Green Bay personnel guru Ron Wolf, now an agent of sorts for McKenzie and a consultant on matters NFL, is involved. One take is that McKenzie has been slow to move toward the Oakland job because of interest in Chicago. But the Bears job only opened on Tuesday, and that was a huge surprise around the league, so McKenzie may only now be taking his long look at Chicago.

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