He was only an OC, and with Trestman & Eberflus alone, we've had historically bad HCs, but I still say the last hire of Lovie Smith's tenure with the Bears is still the worst.
That year, we brought in Brandon Marshall, Martellus Bennett, Alshon Jeffrey, finally had a decent offensive line, and we had Matt Forte along with Jay Cutler.
On the defensive side of the ball, we had a defense that outscored multiple offenses by the halfway point of the season, and was on par to break the franchise record of fewest points allowed.
So what the fuck went wrong, especially since the team was still 10-6? Literally every fucking week, the offense looked like it was getting ready for its first preseason game. I don't have as fond of memories of Jay Cutler as everyone else, but "fuck it, chuck it" was the only thing he could do all year, because the offense was always slow & vanilla as fuck.
Also, I know it ain't technically Mike Tice's fault Major Wright ended Brian Urlacher's career on a hail mary by the Seahawks, but the fucking Seahawks never should have been in the game enough to where that hail mary was necessary, so, I still blame Mike Tice.
I challenge anyone skeptical of this post to go re-watch any part of the 2012 offense and point to me where Tice actually had something cooking. Even god damn Getsy, Trestman, and Nagy have had little moments of genius, but everything Mike Tice did to that offense was an abomination.
Final thing, and what I'm getting at: while guys like Eberflus and Trestman were horrible hires on so many levels, the absolute worst either of them has done is win a few less games than they should have.
The god damn 2012 Bears had absolutely EVERYTHING for a legit SB run, but they had an OC that kept them from even sniffing the fucking playoffs despite being 10-6. If Lovie hires even an average OC, the Bears are absolutely SB favorites.
