Lovie And His 'Program' Should Return
At this time last year, there was a enormous outcry among Bears' fans that Lovie Smith should have been fired. However, after 11 wins and the second seed in the NFC Playoffs, a lot has changed.
"Here's the thing," Dan Pompei said on the Mully and Hanley Show. "You can't judge [Lovie], or any other coach, on what they do at the podium. That's not what it's about. It you judge Bill Belichick on what he did at the podium, you'd fire him too."
LISTEN: Dan Pompei On The Mully And Hanley Show
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Lovie's personality had as much to do with fans wanting him to be fired as the three consecutive seasons without the playoffs did. Fans saw a team that hadn't made the playoffs since losing the Super Bowl, and a coach who didn't seem like he could do anything to change that.
"You have to judge [Lovie] on the results, on what happens on Sundays and how the team performs," Pompei said. "And lately that's been pretty good. This program is working as well as it's ever worked right now. They've got the best staff they've ever had, which is a big thing. It's hard to get a good staff."
For whatever reason, Lovie and his staff wasn't fired after the 2009 season. And while it didn't please the fans at the time, it appears to have been the right move.
Most fans suspect that the Bears held onto Lovie because they didn't want to pay him to go away. But there's a chance he was kept because Jerry Angelo knew that Lovie's entire program was worth keeping around. And if that was the reason Lovie kept his job, then there looks to be a contract extension in his near future.
"I think you have to sit back and judge head coaches on a broader perspective, based on the program," Pompei said. "Certainly winning is important. You need success for validation, but I think it's about more than that. It's about everything that happens...There's a lot of reasons why you think a head coach does a good job, and they're not all about wins and losses."
