If any of you were listening to the Score this afternoon, Spiegel and Parkins had some good questions to ask Pat Mannelly. Mannelly, as you guys should know, is the former long-snapper and radio host who has previously given listeners insights as to why players didn't respect Marc Trestman (he lied to them about their practice quality).
I recently went to the podcast to paraphrase what Mannelly had to exchange during this interview. You can find the link at 670 the Score here and click down to "Patrick Mannelly reveals Ted Phillip's true role, Brian Baldinger breaks down the Eagles coaching candidates."
What follows below are paraphrases of the conversation, not direct quotes. These are basically my summaries of the Q's and A's.
Q: What's your view of Ted Phillips' involvement with the Bears?
PM: Nothing has changed. It's the same as it was before they said Ryan Pace was in charge. To me, Ted Phillips is still in charge. He's still the boss, and he's still meddling with football operations. He's going on trips, sitting in on interviews, so that means he has an influence over who Ryan Pace hires as head coach.
When Pace puts his head on the pillow at night and thinks about these interviews, he's going to think about the reaction of McCaskey and Phillips.
Q: What do you do / should he complain?
PM: Don't let Ted in on the first interviews. If you're supposed to be married to the guy you're hiring, aren't you going to act a little different with your two bosses in the same room? Shouldn't you have a more personal relationship with that guy and not have someone looking over your shoulder?
Q: If you're the owner of the team, you do what you want.
PM: Does Wilf sit in on these processes? I don't know but I doubt it.
Q: If I was the owner of the Bears, I'd want to be in on it. Does McCaskey want a direct line to the head coach, or what? Who reports to who?
PM: Look at Phillips' track record the last 19 years. Four playoffs. That's not good enough. Eight double digit loss seasons. We're on par with the Buffalo Bills. I don't wanna be compared to organizations with that lack of success.
Q: It hasn't changed.
PM: I don't trust what's going on up at Halas Hall right now. Because the track record isn't there. It's not terrible but overall the long-term trend of who's been in charge has not been sustained success.
Q: Does McCaskey love the football side of ownership?
PM: Never really saw it. Brian McCaskey is more with alumni relations so we saw him more. Never really saw George around football. Ted is in charge of everything. His title is president and CEO so he has his fingers on everything in that building.
Q: So if Pace wants to sign a free agent, he doesn't have to ask Phillips? I believe no. (Spiegel believes yes, he believes that all dollars go through Ted Phillips including salary cap dollars)
PM: One thing I do know. The amount of money the McCaskeys are worth has changed tremendously. They're billionaires now. So earlier on, there was way more questions about free agents. Now not as much has to go through those channels because they have the money to do it. The McCaskeys have a ton of money and cash.
Q: Ted has done well with the $$$. There's no team in the NFL that can't afford a top free agent.
PM: Cliff Stein [former cap guru] is still there but has moved on to other stuff. Ted was working on the stadium stuff, but Cliff Stein was brought on to handle the cap stuff during that time. But now things have shifted, people have shifted positions.
Q: Does Ted Phillips have a say in football contracts as it relates to the salary cap?
PM: I know in the past he did. I can't tell you how many years ago that was or if that's changed, I don't know. I don't know how it works today.
Q: Spiegel: What I was told is that any dollar gets run by Ted. Including salary cap.
PM: I know he was in charge of the equipment manager money. There was a situation where the titanium facemask came out, way more expensive and way lighter. And there were only about 8 or 9 guys on the team that could have one because they were too expensive. And that was years ago, but that's an example of how things used to run.
Q: Imagine you're Ted. It's like a "made guy." You're a McCaskey "made guy." And you have a personality where you wanna be involved in football.
PM: Yeah, he has thoughts and he's the boss. And that affects peoples' livelihoods.
Q: As they sit in interviews with these guys, what are the personality issues they're looking for in Halas Hall?
PM: They're probably looking at coaching trees.
Q: What happened in the most recent press conference?
PM: I found out that nothing changed. Doesn't mean it's bad...but they just have to hire the right guy and Ryan Pace has to hit on the draft. Maybe that's not what we wanted to see, but it's just a press conference. The most important thing is winning the draft and hiring the right head coach.
Q: If Ryan Pace wanted to sign Jarvis Landry, Ted Phillips is not involved. (Spiegel disagrees). Spiegel reports he reached out to someone during the break, back when Ted was the cap guy, that was definitely the case.
Hub Arkush gets involved in this point:
Hub: Ted Phillips. He's the president/CEO, he can weigh in on anything they want. They operate on a budget like any team, and if Ryan and his people stay within that budget currently, they likely don't need super approval from Ted Phillips.
Q: Some are involved though.
Hub: They're not the only ones. There are situations where you need top-down approval. The most successful situations, you tend to give power to football guys.
Q: Cliff Stein is "legal counsel" or "corporate counsel" now. Anyways, you would want Ryan Pace to have direct content without Ted?
Hub: Absolutely. You need free and unfettered communication. Ted should get to meet the guy, he's the president. But there's no need for him in the interviews. He's in the way in the interviews. He's going to stifle conversation between Pace and the head coach.
Q: Do you think Ted had anything to do with acquiring Trubisky?
Hub: No. I believe him. I don't think Ted had to approve that. George and Ted immediately said that the decision to fire John Fox was Ryan Pace's. But when asked, did Ryan Pace have the authority to hire anyone he wanted for head coach, they talked about the process. So they didn't say "absolutely," even though they said it was definitely Pace who fired Fox. So it sounds like Pace does not have total authority to make this hire.
Key takeaways:
Hub Arkush thinks that Pace fired Fox, but doesn't have 100% authority to make this hire without permission.
Mannelly thinks nothing has changed in terms of how the Bears operate. Ted Phillips will still sit in on interviews where he will stifle Ryan Pace.
According to Spiegel's source, who is not currently with the Bears, Phillips absolutely needed to have final say in every dollar spent.
Phillips was once so cheap he would not spend money to get all players the titanium face masks, only several key players.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CHIBears/comments/7nxxzx/kodiaks_corner_pat_mannelly_dishes_on_the_bears/
