The Bears have requested an interview with Dolphins senior personnel executive Reggie McKenzie for their GM vacancy (Twitter link via Albert Breer of The MMQB). This marks McKenzie’s first GM interview since he was fired by the Raiders in December 2018.
After several years as an NFL linebacker, McKenzie for the Packers’ front office from 1994 through 2012. After that, he was hired as the Raiders’ GM, inheriting a team with an awful cap situation and depleted draft capital. McKenzie was not perfect, but he did manage to turn that club into a playoff team. Then, prior to the 2018 season, new head coach Jon Gruden wrestled away much of his control, shaking up the roster by trading superstar Khalil Mack to the Bears and shedding other veterans.
McKenzie made some of his best moves in the 2014 draft and did hit on some of his bigger free agency deals, leading the Raiders to a 12-4 2016 with a playoff appearance to snap their long-standing drought. McKenzie earned executive of the year acclaim for his role in that 2016 turnaround. He’s spent the last two years in the Dolphins’ front office where the jury is still out on Chris Grier‘s performance.
Here’s the full rundown of the Bears’ search, via PFR’s tracker:
- Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, vice president of football operations (Browns): Interviewed 1/13
- Morocco Brown, director of college scouting (Colts): Interview requested
- Ran Carthon, director of player personnel (49ers): Interview requested
- Glenn Cook, vice president of player personnel (Browns): Interviewed 1/12
- Ed Dodds, vice president of player personnel (Colts): Interview requested
- Jeff Ireland, assistant general manager (Saints): Interviewed 1/14
- Champ Kelly, assistant director of player personnel (Bears): Interviewed 1/13
- Omar Khan, vice president of football and business administration (Steelers): Interview requested
- Reggie McKenzie, senior personnel executive (Dolphins): Interview requested
- Monti Ossenfort, director of player personnel (Titans): Interviewed 1/15
- Joe Schoen, assistant general manager (Giants): Interview requested
- Rick Smith, former general manager (Texans): Mentioned as candidate
- Eliot Wolf, senior consultant (Patriots): Interview requested
- JoJo Wooden, director of player personnel (Chargers): Interview requested
McKenzie was much better with personnel than Gruden
He definitely deserves another chance at GM and I’m pleased to see the Bears taking an interest.
His team’s record during his 7 Years as Raiders’ GM: 40 Wins and 72 Losses. How is that worthy of another chance?
The Raiders are fortunate for the email leak because Chucky was awful w/ both personnel and coaching.
Hater gonna hate…. If Chucky was patrolling the sideline the Raiders would probably have tonight off and resting for next weekend.
Doesn’t matter who the HC or GM is for the Raiders, arty! the end all be all will hate them. Will not back anything up with facts, just spread hate.
Reggie was a horrible draft analyst and could not set a war room. Stumbled into Mack, Carr, and Cooper is a media darling. Most teams will draft a QB prospect over and over to get it right, not Reggie, he was a CB nightmare of mistakes.
“If Chucky was patrolling the sideline the Raiders would probably have tonight off and resting for next weekend.”
Yeah, ok.
Also, Gruden/Mayock haven’t been all that much better at drafting. Abram and Arnette have been busts thus far. Leatherwood and Ferrell were each overdrafted. Jacobs was fine and Crosby was a great pick, but otherwise, it hasn’t exactly been splendid
I suppose the real question is how much Mayock believed in those picks. How many of them were Gruden favorites and not Mayock’s? Mayock had to have gotten some say, but how much I suppose we’ll see.
Gruden was what a lot of people claim O’Brien was-a good strategist that made awful personnel decisions. The difference for me is, I believe that more about Gruden. Gruden liked to have a certain mold of player though on his roster, and would pick his personnel based on that evaluation. Mayock seems to agree to some extent, but seemingly (this is just speculation on my end, so please consider that) he differs on what kind of character. No doubt Ferrell was a character pick, so that Mayock and Gruden could build a culture, but how much of that was Mayock and how much was Gruden could really change the outlook of the situation.
I think Mayock values character highly in his picks, and Gruden valued toughness. I think they both made personnel decisions based on that. But how much Mayock’s scouting and evaluations actually were considered when ran counter to Gruden’s is what we don’t know. Was Mayock ever against any of the bad personnel moves that the Raiders made? Like, say, blowing up the offensive line for inferior players? If he was, this year without Gruden could be good. If not, well, we’ll see.
Yeah, I definitely agree on the Gruden assessment: someone meant to coach; not manage personnel. Like you said, we’ll see how much input was provided from each component during the upcoming draft
Scratch that; Mayock is gone. I guess we’ll never know lol
No more foreign guys
Jeff Ireland was born in the states. Confusing, I know.
Bears are also interviewing Spuds Mckenzie.
He is the guru of good times.
I think he is a very good coach / GM, I wish him well!
This is why the McCaskey Bears are dumb. The GM interviews should of started the week before Thanksgiving with the idea of launching Pace and making the new hire minutes after the season. Since they hemmed and hawed now they have to do both sets of interviews( HC and GM) at the same time. The GM should of ALREADY been in place by now and allowed to be part of the process. Why they’ll always be behind the 8 Ball, no forward thinkers in the whole organization.
At least McKenzie makes sense as a GM for them. You know, someone who actually knows something about football and football players.
They not only can’t do that, they shouldn’t do it.
Most of the candidates are working for other teams. That is tampering.
Aside from that, the community is small, and it would have gotten out that the Bears were interviewing before firing Pace. That is not the type of organization many candidates would want as an employer.
They are working very quickly, and doing a detailed job of interviewing multiple candidates. It’s more important to get the hire right than to rush it, and with only three vacancies and half the coaches still in the playoffs, they have to to be more deliberate.
At least you didn’t complain about the Rooney Tule this time.
I meant fire Pace before Thanksgiving and then ask permission to interview candidates then. I’m sure the Playoff teams would rather they interview then, Than in the middle of the Playoffs. You’re one of those deliberately vague thinkers aren’t you? And the Rooney rule still stinks. It just causes more confusion than it does aid minority candidates. Like I said before, You’re not going to tell a billionaire who he’s going to hire to spend their money. This is just window dressing.
The new rule allows for a two-hour teleconference interview before the end of the season, and that is only after week 15. No one running a credible search would hire a top executive based on a conference call, and frankly, it would do nothing more than knock out weaker candidates.
Rushing is not sensible. The last time the team brought in a few candidates and rushed to a hire, they ended up with Phil Emery. The search for Pace was also quick.
In 2003, the team did a detailed search for a head coach, they made one of the last hires – Lovie Smith. Then he did a longer search for D coordinator after Marinelli was blocked, and found Ron Rivera.
Again, rushing doesn’t matter. Do a detailed search, and find the best people, and make sure you have backups because you often don’t get your first choice, which sometimes works out for the best.
So I ask you, What was gained by letting Nagy and Pace stay around for the last 5 games exactly? I knew he stunk, You knew he stunk, Stevie Wonder saw he stunk. At least you would of gotten some kind of read on Tabor as a HC in those games. At least the Raiders have a read on the guy who replaced Chucky. Teams who do what everybody else does are backwards thinkers. What you need to be is a pioneer. The best teams innovate, Not play Follow the Leader like lemmings.
Never remotely suggested I thought keeping Nagy or Pace to end of season was good idea. It wasn’t. And they could have tested someone else. But that also doesn’t mean you should rush the process. Most job searches take at least a month to complete, sometimes two, even if you have an in-house candidate or a front -runner.
This is the first time the team is making a diligent effort to learn about multiple qualified candidates from different backgrounds. That’s the way it should work, not rushing to hire someone because you are worried about coordinators, or because someone has a brand name.
And sorry, firing a coach in the middle of the season isn’t innovative, nor is treating an opportunity to interview diverse candidates as a nuisance because you have your eye on one person.
If you wait a month to hire a GM, You’ll get whatever leftover everyone else doesn’t want. Just like the Bears usually get.
Teams have to draw these interviews out for a month to justify why the FO is so bloated with people that really don’t do much the other 11 months of the year.
There are three vacancies. There are a ton of candidates.
They can take two more weeks to make an informed decision.
Sometimes that works out in your favor. Let someone hire the next recycled coach like Dan Quinn or Doug Pederson or whomever it is this year. You may miss on one or two decent candidates, but it’s better to have that than to get stuck with the wrong guy for two or three years.
What’s more important-firing the old coach or hiring the new one?