In a startling personnel move that’s unprecedented in the history of the NFL, the Chicago Bears have offered their newly vacant general manager position to division rivals and 2010 Super Bowl champions, the Green Bay Packers.
Bears President Ted Phillips defended his decision to offer the job to the entire NFL franchise, which was founded in 1919, by saying, “The Packers have a proven track record of managing to put a playoff team on the field, and if we’re going to start things over, I think the Packers are the ones to lead us to where we want to go.”
Critics were quick to point out that the Packers, in so much as they exist as a nebulous professional entity comprised of players, personnel, and staff members, have no experience working as the GM of a completely different franchise, while others wondered how the organization, which also includes trainers, public relation workers, and advertising account executives, would be able to fit in the current GM office at Halas Hall, which itself is comfortably large for one man, but somewhat of a tight fit for the hundreds of members of the Packers organization.
League officials worry there may be a conflict of interest, since the Packers would be expected to suit up and play their division rivals at least twice next season, though they concede that the end result could not be any worse for the Bears than last year’s efforts.
