Dear Ms. McCaskey, what now?

“One of the things we talk about: ‘What would Dad have done?’ What would Grandpa have done?’ I think if you had the opportunity to ask them, they would say, ‘Do the right thing.'”

– George McCaskey, New Chicago Bears team chairman, June 2011

Virginia McCaskey, we’re reaching out to you.

When I heard the news today that the Bears fired Matt Eberflus, the first question in my mind was: Who are “the Bears”? Surely that should be Ryan Poles’ job, but since Papa Bear’s death in 1983, an organizational chart resembling an MC Escher staircase has been a defining feature of the McCaskey family’s team leadership.

In the current version, GM Ryan Poles was essentially handed over to Eberflus as head coach, followed by team president Kevin Warren handing over to Poles. The team’s chairman, George McCaskey, has repeatedly said he is a “fan” not a football man, and Warren seems to be here more for the stadium deal than the team on the field. And yet…

“This morning, after a meeting with George and Kevin, we informed Matt of our decision to move in a different direction with the leadership of our football team and the head coaching position,” Poles explained in the first midseason of the franchise’s 105-year-old firing of the head coach.

Kevin Warren also pointed out that this was the Poles’ decision (“I support Ryan and the decision that was made this morning”), but it’s a decision so obvious that we can only hope that “Meeting with George and Kevin” is only because the Poles saw them both in the hallway, said, “I’m firing Matt,” and left. Confusion was rife this morning as the Bears actually had Eberflus take a Zoom call with the media discussing his plans for our next game, only to be fired about an hour later.

The Bears need strong, purposeful authority, and it appears that no one in the organization has that authority, or at most possesses it, but lacks the will to carry it out.

That should be George. But on June 9, 2011, he presented his leadership blueprint, declaring that he was “not determined to put my stamp on the team.”

Which means his mother has to do it.

Virginia McCaskey only steps into the spotlight on days when no one else can make the call. February 10, 1999 was the first day of its kind, with the Bears reeling under team president Michael McCaskey after 15 years of McCaskey family ownership. Virginia pushed her husband Ed from chairman into retirement, “fired” Michael as president and promoted him to chairman, and named money man Ted Phillips as the new team president.

“Do you know when sad days are?” said the 76-year-old McCaskey during the change. “When we lose games.”

The next notable day for Ms McCaskey was in April 2010, when Michael announced that George would replace him as chairman. This was not as dramatic or tense a press conference as in 1999. In public, the decision was influenced by Michael, who attributed it to the fact that both he and his mother had gotten older. “It makes perfect sense to have a good succession plan,” he said.

The family has spoken vaguely about this succession plan, saying only that they have one. “My brother Pat says it very well: ‘We want to keep the Bears until the Second Coming,'” George said in January 2017. But owning a team isn’t enough: You also have to manage the team. And George consistently builds buffers between himself and the decisions below him.

Today’s dismissal of Eberflus is the latest example of this confused authority. When Ryan Poles decided he would trade Justin Fields and start again with Caleb Williams, firing Eberflus was the obvious decision. All of the traits that got him fired today were evident in his first two seasons. Williams is our fourth rookie quarterback taken in the first round since 2003, and in the first three cases we paired that rookie with a coach in the hot seat. The organization knew this was a pattern, and the Poles must have realized that Eberflus was not the coach who could develop a quarterback.

But the Poles kept him anyway, only to release him less than a year later. Either Poles decided in January to keep Eberflus, which should be a punishable offense for Poles, or Poles was forced by his superiors to keep Eberflus, which, as we learned just this month, until 2026 and not as assumed is under contract until 2025.

The Poles, of course, did not have a full hiring process for Eberflus in 2022 and were led to Eberflus by a five-person committee led by George McCaskey, who then hired Kevin Warren as the Poles’ supervisor a year later. The staircase has no top, no bottom, no middle, no direction, so it seems the only thing left is for 101-year-old Virginia to step in and effect a family change for the third time since 1999, removing George as chairman for…

And then I realize: There’s no good way to end that sentence.

The Bears’ board of directors consists of Virginia, George, Kevin Warren, Patrick McCaskey, Brian McCaskey, Ed McCaskey Jr. and minority owner Pat Ryan. The position of chairman has been held by George Halas, Ed McCaskey, Michael McCaskey (who passed away in 2020) and now George McCaskey. The authority to replace the team chair rests solely with Ms. McCaskey. Would she leave the family for the first time ever and leave the job to Kevin Warren or Pat Ryan? Warren seems unlikely since he only seems to be here to work on the stadium.

Pat Ryan, 87, seems even more unlikely, both because of his age and because he and the late Andrew McKenna owned 19.7% of the Bears, according to the tribune In 2013, they joined Virginia as the team’s largest shareholder. What keeps the Bears under McCaskey’s control is that she also has voting control of her children’s 41.8%, as well as a separate 11.3% share block.

When she dies, If Her 19.7% and 11.3% split evenly between her living children (and perhaps the heirs of her two deceased children), then Pat Ryan’s 19.7% would make him the team’s largest shareholder. Making him chairman now would certainly contradict Virginia, Michael and George’s statements over the years about keeping the team in the family.

That leaves one of the other McCaskey children, but I’ve always assumed that any McCaskey succession plan involves Mrs. McCaskey’s 31% being passed along to George somehow. That’s what NFL consultant Marc Ganis thinks, but as he noted in February, even he doesn’t know for sure.

“I think that’s the plan,” Ganis told Bloomberg and Crain Currency. “As with all things like this, you don’t really know until it happens.”

In September 2022, Sportico published a detailed look at the Bears’ possible succession planning, noting that NFL teams (except the Packers) submit an updated succession plan to the league office every summer. The McCaskey family does not comment publicly on their succession plan; They declined comment to Bloomberg and Sportico while George said this tribune in 2013: “If you want to publish what has already been reported, that’s no problem for us.”

In other words, handing over the chairmanship to one of George’s brothers may not even be possible at this time, as it could impact the family’s succession planning too much. This is speculation on my part; We just don’t know what that plan is.

And so we are left with our beloved Escher. Like an Escher, the bears are very valuable and will attract many buyers. In addition, the bears confuse the audience like an Escher. Will the Poles have sole authority to hire a new head coach? Will George and Kevin see this as Poland’s first or second head coach? Does Warren rate the Poles? Does George rate Warren? If the problem “starts at the top,” as we so often say, is Virginia preparing to leave George behind? And is she even capable of considering the impact such a move could have on the unknown succession planning?

All we can say for sure is that Thomas Brown is interim head coach, Caleb Williams is a promising rookie, and Ryan Poles will hire a permanent head coach in January. When Jayden Daniels unleashed his Hail Mary, the Bears were seconds away from a 5-2 record. Instead, we lost, and we’ve lost every game since, and even though our offensive coordinator and head coach fell, the root of the problem remains.

“I’m in this position because of my heritage – I didn’t do anything to deserve it,” Virginia McCaskey said in the summer of 2019. “I still think it’s a man’s world and I’m very grateful to be a part of it.” like me. I think it’s a huge privilege and I have to make sure I don’t disappoint.”

It’s hard to say where humility ends and organizational hierarchy begins, but to whom does Virginia McCaskey express her gratitude for her commitment – her father or her son? Your son talks about collaboration. The team president says he leans on the GM, and the GM consults with the team president and the chairman. If you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have a quarterback.

When you have four team leaders, you have the Chicago Bears.

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Jack M Silverstein is Chicago’s sports historian, Bears historian at Windy City Gridiron, Pro Football Hall of Fame analyst and author of WHY WE ROOT: Crazy Obsessions of a Chicago Sports Fan. Say hello @Readjack.