Yesterday the Bears refused to let Mike Tice interview for a job with the Titans, but not because they are happy with the job he did as offensive line coach this season. Instead, the Bears can afford to lose Tice because he’s the only one with keys to the locker room at Halas Hall.
“Mike did a fair job molding our O-linemen into serviceable players this season, but the real reason we can’t let him go is because he’s our only way into our training facilities,” said head coach Lovie Smith. “So Mike is our offensive line coach, at least until he one of us make copies of his keys.”
Tice said early this season a fear of being fired due to his offensive line’s struggles prompted him to throw out every set of locker room keys but his, thereby making him indispensable to the team. However, he now wishes he had thought of something else as the Bears currently view him as irreplaceable.
“Had I known that now I’d be able to get a better job elsewhere, I would have taken a different path to job security,” said Tice. “Though I suppose I could just go to a hardware store and get more copies of keys made so all the coaches have one, but that seems like an awful lot of work.”
