Bears Extend GM Ryan Pace Through 2021
On the heels of firing head coach John Fox this morning, the Bears have decided to extend general manager Ryan Pace through the 2021 campaign, team president and CEO Ted Phillips told reporters (Twitter link). 
Pace’s original deal was set to expire at the end of the 2019 campaign. With the two-year extension, Pace will likely be on the same contract length as the head coach he will bring in.
Pace joined the Bears in 2015 following a 14-year run with the Saints as a scout and director of player personnel. At 37 years old at the time of his hiring, the Texas native was the youngest general manager in the NFL.
Phillips commented on bring back Pace, saying, “He’s earned the opportunity to see his plan to fruition.”
Under Pace’s direction, the Bears traded up one spot in the 2016 NFL Draft to nab North Carolina product Mitch Trubisky. Before pulling the trigger on that deal, he made an interesting decision to sign Mike Glennon to a three-year $45 MM deal. Glennon started just four games in 2017 before he was replaced by the rookie.
During his press conference, Pace hinted that Trubisky would be involved in the head-coaching interview process. “That’s definitely something we’re going to look into,” he said. The Bears are expected to hire an offensive-minded coach but Pace says the team has not submitted any requests to interview current coaches.
Colts To Interview Texans DC Mike Vrabel, Request Josh McDaniels Summit
The Texans granted the Colts permission to speak with their defensive coordinator, Mike Vrabel, Albert Breer of SI.com tweets. And the Colts now have three names to whom they’ve submitted interview requests.
Indianapolis also submitted a request to meet with Josh McDaniels, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets.
Chris Ballard said Monday (via Mike Wells of ESPN.com) previous head-coaching experience will not be mandatory to fill Chuck Pagano‘s spot. Panthers DC Steve Wilks, a first-year coordinator, confirmed the Colts requested an interview with him.
McDaniels figures to be a sought-after name on the market again this year. The Patriots OC has been selective in the past, though, so it won’t be a given he jumps at the chance to coach Andrew Luck — whose future remains uncertain.
Vrabel just finished his first season as Houston’s DC. His unit fell from first in 2016 to 20th this season. However, the Texans encountered serious injury problems in Vrabel’s first season. The former Patriots stalwart’s name came up in the Rams’ and 49ers’ HC searches last year.
Packers To Fire DC Dom Capers
Dom Capers‘ nine-season tenure as the Packers’ defensive coordinator looks to be over. Green Bay will part ways with Capers, Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com reports.
This was the expected course of action for a Packers team that saw its eight-year playoff streak end this season. Demovsky adds there will be more changes on Green Bay’s defensive staff. Packers safeties coach Darren Perry is expected to receive consideration, Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tweets.
The 67-year-old Capers has been a DC since his stellar work with the Steelers in the early 1990s. Twice a head coach, Capers could well be in demand by other teams as a defensive leader despite this dismissal. He’s been on an NFL sideline since the 1986 season.
Capers, though, has had the task of leading a defense for a franchise that largely eschews free agent help. He’s mostly coached players Ted Thompson‘s brought in through the draft, and the results have not been especially solid in recent years. Both the 2016 and 2017 Green Bay defenses have ranked 22nd in total defense, while the 2015 unit ranked 15th.
This marks just the third time Mike McCarthy’s fired a coordinator in 12 years as Green Bay’s HC. His ouster of Bob Sanders after the 2008 season brought Capers to Green Bay.
Capers’ units have been tasked with operating on a team led by Aaron Rodgers and have naturally been viewed as the weaker part of the Packers during the All-Pro-caliber quarterback’s run. Thompson, though, has used steady draft resources to aid the unit in recent years, using first- or second-round picks on the likes of Kenny Clark, Damarious Randall, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Kevin King, Quinten Rollins and Josh Jones. Injuries have also limited Green Bay’s defenses in recent years.
Due to the franchise’s continuity-centric ways, almost none of the team’s defenders has played in a different defensive system than Capers’ version of the 3-4, so it will be interesting to see how Thompson and Co. go about filling this vacancy. Demovsky notes Vic Fangio, who also runs a 3-4, could be a candidate.
A former Steelers defensive back under Capers, Perry has coached the Packers’ safeties throughout Capers’ tenure as DC.
Cardinals Request HC Interviews With Matt Patricia, Jim Schwartz
Bruce Arians‘ New Year’s Day retirement has the Cardinals searching for a new head coach for the first time in five years, and the franchise has been busy in its opening stages of filling Arians’ post.
The Cardinals have requested permission to interview Eagles DC Jim Schwartz and Patriots DC Matt Patricia, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. This comes on the heels of reports the Cards are in the process of setting up a summit with Eagles QBs coach John DeFilippo and have requested a meeting with Vikings OC Pat Shurmur.
Schwartz has been linked to the Giants and has an interview already scheduled with New York. The Giants and Lions have requested permission to meet with Patricia.
The 43-year-old Patricia’s only coached in New England, being on Bill Belichick‘s staff since 2004. He’s served as the Patriots’ DC since 2012. Belichick’s towering presence and his assistants’ less-than-stellar collective work in head-coaching opportunities have helped keep Patricia in New England, but this could be the year a team takes a chance on the defensive leader.
Schwartz almost certainly figures to land a second head-coaching job, with his Eagles defense finishing fourth this season during a campaign that’s seen Philadelphia book the NFC’s No. 1 seed for the first time in 13 years. A bidding war could be on the way for his services.
Lions To Interview Teryl Austin For HC Job
Teryl Austin has been the Lions’ defensive coordinator for the past four seasons and has shown up on other teams’ radars as an HC candidate.
Now that the Lions have a vacancy, they will interview their DC for the job, Josina Anderson of ESPN.com reports (on Twitter). Austin will meet with Lions brass on Tuesday, Anderson reports.
The Lions fired Jim Caldwell on Monday morning, and the two have been on the same staff for most of this decade. Caldwell brought Austin over from the Ravens once the Lions hired him in 2014. Austin’s Detroit future will surely be in doubt after Caldwell’s dismissal, but the Lions will evaluate the 52-year-old Austin soon.
Austin’s defense finished this season ranked 27th, however, a drop from 2016’s performance. He figures to have competition from candidates coming off stronger seasons leading their respective units.
Cardinals, Lions Request Interviews With Vikings’ Pat Shurmur
Both the Cardinals and Lions came out of Monday morning with coaching vacancies, and the architect of the Vikings’ offense is on the teams’ list.
The Vikings have a first-round bye, and that’s opened the door for the Cardinals and Lions to submit requests to interview Pat Shurmur for their HC positions, Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com report (Twitter links).
Shurmur’s work in helping the Vikings be an upper-echelon offense despite the keys being in journeyman Case Keenum‘s hands this season undoubtedly made the second-year Minnesota OC an attractive HC candidate.
The 52-year-old Shurmur has two years of head-coaching experience as well, leading the Browns from 2011-12. He’s been an OC with the Rams and Eagles as well and is only in his first season as the Vikings’ full-time offensive leader. Norv Turner‘s departure midway through last season resulted in Shurmur becoming the Vikes’ interim OC. Minnesota took the interim tag off that label after 2016, and the Keenum-piloted Vikings are one of the favorites to win Super Bowl LII.
Bears, Cardinals Setting Up HC Interviews With Eagles’ John DeFilippo
After firing John Fox, the Bears are moving fast into the interview process to replace him. The team is setting up a meeting with Eagles quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets.
The Cardinals are joining the fray as well. Minutes after Bruce Arians officially announced his retirement, a Cardinals request to interview DeFilippo for their HC job emerged, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. While the Bears are going to be competition, Ian Rapoport notes (on Twitter) Cards GM Steve Keim has had DeFilippo on his radar for a while.
The interview is expected to occur later this week, per Garofolo. DeFilippo has served in his current role since 2016, and in that time Carson Wentz transformed from Division I-FCS quarterback prospect to one-time MVP frontrunner.
Wentz threw 33 touchdown passes — an Eagles single-season record — in 13 games, and the 39-year-old DeFilippo will have a chance to vault two rungs on the NFL ladder largely because of the North Dakota State’s progress. DeFilippo did serve as the Browns’ OC but did so for one season (2015) before that staff was broken up, routing him to Philadelphia.
Bruce Arians Announces Retirement
The Cardinals will be looking for a new coach. Bruce Arians announced he will conclude his five-season tenure in Arizona and retire from the profession.
Michael Bidwill said (via Kent Somers of AZCentral.com, on Twitter) Arians informed him of this decision on Sunday. The search for Arians’ successor will begin immediately.
The 65-year-old Arians has been a coach for more than 40 years and first coached in the NFL in 1989. Only five of those seasons came as an NFL head coach, but Arians spent nine seasons as an offensive coordinator in the league — the last of which (2012) earned him the long-awaited opportunity to lead a team.
In Arizona, Arians steered the Cardinals to two playoff berths. The 2015 season was his unquestioned masterpiece, with the Cardinals gliding to the NFC championship game. He will finish with a record of 49-30-1.
Arians cemented himself as a high-end coaching candidate by winning NFL coach of the year honors leading the 2012 coach while Chuck Pagano underwent cancer treatment. Prior to that season, Arians operated as the Steelers’ offensive coordinator during a period that saw the franchise win its sixth championship (2008) and reach its most recent Super Bowl (in 2010).
Arians coached Carson Palmer during his entire Arizona stint, one that revived his career, and his offense helped Larry Fitzgerald further place himself among the league’s all-time greats at his position. Neither are guaranteed to return in 2018, so this decision could be a seminal one regarding how the Cards’ cornerstone players proceed.
Dean Pees Expected To Retire
Ravens DC Dean Pees is expected to retire after the season, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. Pees, 68, has not yet told his players of his intentions.
Baltimore has an excellent chance of advancing to the playoffs for the first time since 2014 today, and its defense is a big reason for that. The team ranks ninth in the league in yards allowed per game in 2017, fourth in points allowed per game, and it has generated a league-leading 33 turnovers. Nonetheless, the Ravens have largely feasted on rookie and/or second-string quarterbacks this season, and the team’s defense has struggled against more established signal-callers.
Schefter refers to Pees as one of the league’s top defensive minds whose units frequently feature exotic looks, but that would be news to Ravens fans. Pees’ defenses in Baltimore have been generally marked by conservative play-calling and late-game collapses, with some notable exceptions.
However, he has been a part of two of the league’s more successful franchises over the past 14 years. He broke into the NFL as the Patriots’ LB coach in 2004 before being promoted to New England’s DC in 2006. He left New England for Baltimore in 2010 and served as the Ravens’ LB coach in 2010-11. When Chuck Pagano left his job as Baltimore’s DC to accept a head coaching position with the Colts in 2012, Pees was elevated to defensive coordinator.
The Ravens won the Super Bowl that year, a game that featured a last-minute goal-line stand by their defense. In addition to that championship ring, Pees earned a ring with the Patriots, who won Super Bowl XXXIX when Pees was their LB coach.
The Ravens have typically promoted from within when it comes to their defensive coordinators. Under head coach John Harbaugh, all four defensive coordinators that the team has employed — Rex Ryan, Greg Mattison, Pagano, and Pees — were previously position coaches on the team’s staff. Don Martindale, Baltimore’s current LB coach, would be the top in-house candidate to replace Pees, though the Ravens would surely be interested in reuniting with Pagano, who is expected to be fired by the Colts.
Packers Expected To Part Ways With Dom Capers
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but the Packers are expected to part ways with longtime defensive coordinator Dom Capers, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. Capers, 67, has been with the team since 2009, but it appears as if his ninth season will be his last.
Capers’ unit will finish outside the top-15 in league rankings for the sixth time in the past seven years, and the last time it enjoyed a top-10 ranking was in 2010, when the Packers won the Super Bowl. Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Capers could step down or retire to avoid the ignominy of a firing.
Silverstein opines that Green Bay has the makings of a solid defense, but that moving on from Capers is essential. He also believes that the team needs to bring in a new coordinator from outside the organization to provide the defense with a completely fresh start. He looks at some of the top names that could be available, including current Bears DC Vic Fangio and current Lions DC Teryl Austin, though it does not appear that there are currently any substantive rumors linking the Packers to the names on Silverstein’s list.
Capers, meanwhile, is probably prepared to call it a career. He broke into the league with the Saints in 1986 and has twice served as a head coach (for the expansion Panthers in 1995 and the expansion Texans in 2002). He has one Super Bowl ring, which, as noted above came as Green Bay’s DC in 2010.