Offseason Shitposts: The Dave McGinnis Award for (Shameful) Coaching Achievements - Part 1: The Slapdick History of Michael McCaskey vs Dave McGinnis

Hello, I can close my eyes and visualize an HD replay of an 8-ft ginger with a freshly-cut $18M check funded in part by my own viewership walk onto the field and immediately take a snap to the dick, causing a fumble and loss of possession to the Packers.

$18 million, ladies and gentlemen

    While for a normal fanbase, this would've been exhibit A in the case to dissolve the franchise, that wasn’t even the most embarrassing play that game. My point is – like the rest of you – I’ve spent enough time supporting a once proud organization rendered into a national laughingstock that I'm technically eligible for the Republican Primary. I can't tell you the specifics of any playoff overtime rules, but I can tell you with 100% confidence just how a QB can end a half with a negative passer rating, along with real-life examples while I stare off quietly. It’s just what happens to a human brain that’s exposed to more first-round picks spent on busted QBs than playoff wins for 15 years straight.

    All of this is to say that I, like the rest of you, have a borderline savant-level knowledge of the Bears embarrassing us and themselves over the years. Hey, speaking of which, did I mention that above play was actually the second fumble from Glennon? And that the first one was on the offense's very first play?

    Watching the Bears waddle onto the national stage to immediately slip on a banana peel and shit  themselves is our version of the Spice on Arrakis - sure, it's completely unpalatable and alienating to outsiders, but at this point I'm so entrenched that I could never leave. Unlike us, however, there are some professionals out there who respond to an invitation to join our shambling, star-crossed circus of fuckups with "fucking what? WHY?".

You want in on this?

    For that reason, this very special offseason article series ranking the most embarrassing (most em-bear-assing? Em-bare-ass-ing?) Bears coaching decisions in my lifetime is named in honor of Dave McGinnis. 

"Who?" asked the reader born after 1990, presumably between vape hits, "is he bussin'? Or low-key sus?" you're probably clarifying. Don't worry, there is little to no cap on here - I'm fully on fleek.

The Shameful History of the Dave McGinnis Award

Let's paint a picture - imagine the steering wheel of the multi-billion dollar flagship NFL franchise in the hands of the most woefully incompetent failson in a family composed exclusively of woefully incompetent failsons 3 generations removed from anything resembling a successful decision.

"That's the case right now?"

Believe it or not, not quite! Current toddler-behind-the-wheel George McCaskey isn't even the most inept McCaskey to run the Bears in my lifetime. Seriously, this guy —

"My mommy says she's disappointed in me" - official statement

—is an improvement from the McCaskey son running the team in the '90s, Michael. He earned his place in the annals of history during the Bears coaching search in 1995 by chosing the team's beloved linebackers coach of 10 years, Dave McGinnis. By itself, a nearly defensible hire, making it the greatest achievement by a McCaskey since George figured out how to write cursive Qs (McGinnis' head coaching record of 17-40 is still, somehow, barely a blip on the list of hilarious failures at work here). The problem is that Michael McCaskey went through the coaching hire process the same way the McCaskey boys go through every encounter - fumbling awkwardly through with an obvious lack of skill or experience, yet resolutely maintaining otherwise, finishing prematurely and leaving as the disappointment sets in.

In a move so McCaskey it spontaneously drew itself into the family crest, Michael rushed out after the first interview to alert the whole organization of the hiring of new coach Dave McGinnis, set up his office and phoneline to answer as Dave McGinnis, held a fucking national press conference announcing it...before telling McGinnis he'd been hired.

One morning later, however, McGinnis was baffled by the phone calls from Frazier and Singletary, each man telling McGinnis he'd been announced as the Bears' head coach. How could that be, McGinnis wondered, considering there had been no contract talks, no talk of a coaching staff – no one actually telling him he'd been named head coach?

    Folks over the years have theorized that this was a ploy in the McCaskey cheapness that was typical of the era to pressure McGinnis into a bad contract. They're wrong but, to be clear, not because Michael McCaskey wasn't astoundingly cheap or enough of an idiot bully to try that - the only reason Soldier Field has historically shoddy turf while Chicago's orphanages have lawns is because it never occurred to Michael that they have no parents to report the theft to - they're wrong because of their own tortured minds grasping for logic. They look at these events and see a gradeschool bully's plan with a toddler's execution as the explanation because, in the words of Nietzsche, "when a sane mind gazes into the void where a McCaskey's reasoning should be, the void stares back".

“We sat there for a little while the next morning and (McCaskey) finally looked at me and said, `Look, this just isn't going to work, is it?'” McGinnis said. “I said, `No, Michael, it's not. I'm saddened by the way this is. This is not good for anybody.

    Dave McGinnis saw the impotent flailing of nepotism's most impactful mascot, the daily media circus following in his wake (again, before McGinnis was even hired), and the fact that McCaskey then began salary negotiations by hilariously lowballing him while his new coach's press conference was scheduled and rightfully said in his own way: "fuuuuuuuck this".

    In doing so, McGinnis showed the most common sense that's ever been displayed by someone associated with the Bears, thus also proving he lacked the first qualification to be part of it: be fucking hilariously inept. In memory of the great "fuuuuuuuuuck this" in Bears coaching history, we look back at other, lesser men without the intellect, integrity, or foresight to make obvious choices - in short, Bears coaches.