Chicago Bears Need to Fire John Fox
2) Accountability
The first year of John Fox appeared to be a new era in Chicago’s locker room. Large egos like Brandon Marshall and Martellus Bennett were sent packing when they created media headlines by criticizing their fellow teammates. While it seems like the locker room drama has died down for the most part, another issue has come to light, PEDs. From 2001 to 2014, the Bears had 4 players suspended for drug use. Since John Fox took over, the Bears have had five PED related suspensions. While Fox can’t control what individual players put into their bodies, it does say something about the culture promoted around the Bears.
Speaking of things that seem shady, Fox promotes a deceptive culture in the way he addresses the media. It’s hard for a coach to make an injury designation into a pun, but Fox has done so with the term “day-to-day.” Want to know some players that were labeled day-to-day throughout the Fox era?
Kevin White suffered a shin injury in his rookie year and was labeled day-to-day, less than a week later, he hit IR.
Pernell McPhee was recovering from major offseason knee surgery, but he received the “day-to-day” label and was a lock to play week 1. McPhee never saw the practice field during training camp, and he started the year on the PUP list and wasn’t full speed until halfway through the year.
Jay Cutler was labeled “day-to-day” with a thumb injury earlier this year. The Bears wouldn’t even rule him out in the following weeks despite not logging any practice time. Better yet, Cutler still wore a cast on his throwing hand and still wasn’t ruled out until the last possible minute every week.
If “day-to-day” didn’t signify trouble, everyone held their collective breath when Kyle Fuller was tabbed week to week. The designation was given after Fuller underwent a “minor” knee scope. Even now, no one really knows what happened to Fuller’s knee.
While I understand that being 100% open with every injury isn’t practical, trying so hard to hide injuries looks comical. The competitive advantage is minimal, especially when players like Cutler and McPhee are clearly weeks away from playing.