Former Bears GM Jerry Angelo has some familiarity with working out quarterback issues. So it probably shouldnt be a complete surprise that he is on a short candidate list for the GM spot with the New York Jets, according to Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News.
Mehta tweeted Wednesday night that the Jets will interview Angelo on Thursday. According to Mike Florios roundup at ProFootballTalk.com, Angelo is part of a search process that includes Miami assistant GM Brian Gaine, San Diego director of player personnel Jimmy Raye, 49ers director of player personnel Tom Gamble and New York Giants director of college scouting Marc Ross, one of the finalists for the Bears GM job that went to Phil Emery.
Let the info flow
The grumblings around the NFL that Phil Emery is using his coaching search to pick the brains of candidates are amusing. For a couple of reasons.
One is that anyone who fails to learn something from candidates being interviewed for a job is an arrogant idiot. Any candidate worth interviewing likely has some good ideas or he shouldnt be in the meeting in the first place.
And if the candidate doesnt know that he is going to divulge solid information, he also doesnt belong in the interview. If answering How would you fix Jay Cutler? or What would you do to fix the Chicago Bears offense? is giving away some sort of competitive information; if Phil Emery has to rely on relative outsiders for those answers, then Emery may not be the guy to be handling this whole thing.
If Emery doesnt already have an idea of how to fix the offense, he should have shared a cab to the airport with Lovie Smith.
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But the second point here is that if that if any candidate is not savvy enough to do a reverse-brain-pick, then he is a dolt. If you dont have some good questions for your potential employer, you didnt prepare very well.
A serous candidate should leave his extensive session knowing what Emery will do with Brian Urlacher, Henry Melton and some other key individuals. He should have gotten from Emery an idea of what the Bears intend to do in free agency.
Information flows both ways. Indeed, what candidates might learn about the Bears could far more revealing than what Emery can draw out of them that might help the Bears.
Cause for pause
The death of Mirko Jurkovic late Wednesday to cancer was an occasion for pause. The former Notre Dame guard out of Thornton Fractional North High School was a ninth-round draft choice trying to make the Bears in 1992, and Mirko was one of the first people I met on the first day covering the Chicago Bears.
He didnt make the Bears from a draft class topped by Alonzo Spellman and Troy Auzenne and rookie free agents that included Ed OBradovich, son of Bears great OB, and Jim Schwantz.
Most fans wont really remember Mirko. But sometimes its worth stopping and giving a thought to people who trip lightly and briefly through our lives.