Off season rumor threads beginning!
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...terview-could-be-top-bears-candidate-in-2021/
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...terview-could-be-top-bears-candidate-in-2021/
Fitz turned down NFL job
- Thread starter RhabdoWildcat
- Start date
"Fitzgerald has long impressed NFL scouts who visit his campus with his leadership skills, ability to compete with lesser athletes and the culture he has cultivated at a school where academics dominate"
Ah, now I see the Bears connection........
Ah, now I see the Bears connection........
Fitz is a college coach and I think he knows that. It would be a mistake for him to move to the NFL.
I think he’d do fine in the NFL. Culture is super important no matter what business or level you’re in. If he built such an amazing one at NU he could do it again. That being said doubt he leaves NU. He has more to accomplish here and seems like he enjoys his job more than he would an NFL gig.
There are more than a few people on this board who claim to be NU fans but do nothing but rip Fitz and the program. Some people are just not happy unless they have something to complain about. Perpetual haters.
Do I think Fitz is currently in the best spot to optimize his success? Yes.
Do I think he could be successful elsewhere with a slightly altered message? Also yes.
He's awfully thin-skinned.
Plus I believe him when he says he isn't going anywhere
I do not see it as "Fitz hate" to opine that he would suck at being an NFL coach. I do not hate Fitz. I appreciate Fitz as NU's coach. But I believe he would pluperfectly suck as an NFL coach. He is where he should be.
I understand that if he did go to the NFL, the Bears would be his dream job. The difference in job security, though, would be night and day. Job security isn't in great supply in the coaching profession, and Fitz (rightfully, IMO) enjoys it at a level virtually unmatched anywhere at the pro or college level. Wouldn't seem sensible to flush that away on the chance at a "dream" gig that would be statistically likely to evaporate after a short few seasons. He's where he belongs, where he can leave his greatest mark while enjoying stability that just doesn't exist anywhere else.
Soon, he should never have to worry about money. He makes a ton and more importantly has a modest, family based lifestyle. So job security isn't a thing for him IMO. Being productive, having a creative life challenge, wanting to go to work 95% of the mornings that you wake up, that is what is important to him. That might make him make a change. I could see him decide to run a benevolent Non Profit as easily as a pro coaching job.
I believe he isn’t going anywhere.
In terms of being ‘thin skinned’? I think he likes that perception, as he has always been very defensive of his players and staff, and any criticism that comes towards the program he deflects towards himself.
Many if not most NFL coaches are thin-skinned. In Chicago alone, Ditka, Lovie, and John Fox immediately come to mind as having adversarial relationships with the local sports journalists.
I’ll go to bat for my staff in public, to the end of the earth, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have serious heart to heart discussions in private.
I guess the audience here wants Fitz to share all the “Dirt”. Personally, I admire Fitz’s strong commitment to his players.
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maybe the coaches aren’t thin skinned but the media can just be disingenuous and misleading.
I literally do not understand how or why NFL top brass are interested in Fitz. This is not a dig at Fitz, despite how it may sound. Fitz's voodoo magic works in an environment where he has control. He controls access at the door, at the velvet rope. Northwestern is that one and only place.
Fitz's football IQ, by comparison to top NFL coaches, is in question. His ability to cultivate culture goes out the window when on a good day he has 50-60% of control over his coaching staff and player personnel. He's really never been under any pressure to take a player with "character issues" out of desperation to field a winning product. No GMs or owners to fight with in Evanston...Morty, Phillips, and Ryan give him the space he needs and wants to put on his dream production.
If Fitz ever goes to the NFL, I understand and sincerely wish him well. He's a competitor, and I wouldn't blame anyone who wants to scratch that itch to see if they can compete at the highest level.
Fitz's football IQ, by comparison to top NFL coaches, is in question. His ability to cultivate culture goes out the window when on a good day he has 50-60% of control over his coaching staff and player personnel. He's really never been under any pressure to take a player with "character issues" out of desperation to field a winning product. No GMs or owners to fight with in Evanston...Morty, Phillips, and Ryan give him the space he needs and wants to put on his dream production.
If Fitz ever goes to the NFL, I understand and sincerely wish him well. He's a competitor, and I wouldn't blame anyone who wants to scratch that itch to see if they can compete at the highest level.
He addresses critiques directly while often deploying humor (e.g., “50,000 offensive coordinators in the stadium.”)
“Thin skin” would imply (to me) that his self-confidence is somehow impacted by outside criticism more than your average coach. This certainly is not true of Fitz who is either “supremely self confident“ or “stubborn” depending on your point of view. I would not call it thin-skinned.
What if there isn’t actual NFL interest, but rather his agent pushing these narratives to Fitz-friendly Medill grads in the media, in order to generate leverage for his client?
Disagree. He seems to resent any questioning of his coaching, hence the 50k offensive coordinators comment. I'm too lazy to look up all of his comments that were either overly defensive or of the "I told you so" variety.
I can live with it, but it's annoying
I would defer to @MRCat95 on this one, as he was his teammate and, like, actually knows Fitz personally, as opposed to the rest of us internet psychologists whose main qualification may be to have slept in a Holiday Inn.
The dude has thick skin. Almost a big leathery callus all over his entire body...
He might be cocky, a smart ***, dislike the media, or periodically be in a bad mood, but thin skin is not a trait of his. Unless you have a different definition of thin skin (below) than I do.
idiom
The definition of have a thin skin is to be very sensitive, easily insulted and unable to deal with anything that might be seen as criticism.
An example of have a thin skin is a girl who cries every time someone says she did something wrong or every time someone yells at her.
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Resent equals thin skinned and overly defensive? Really? I guess that makes Dabo Sweeney, Rick Pitino, and Nick Saban thin skinned.
Hell, if I had 50k ignoramuses comment publicly on my work, I’d resent it, too.
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shouldn't it be ignorami? or is that the folded paper art...
I will have to agree to disagree with you and MR. Keeping in mind - every year my interest in any other CFB except NU dwindles due to, well, everything that's wrong with the sport. Therefore, I don't care to watch too many other coaches post game pressers. But, for instance, I love watching Harbaugh after they lose, because I can't stand him nor UM. They guy is grinding his teeth into dust after a loss, but generally doesn't rise to the bait offered by some reporters. Notable exception is post-OSU this year, but he usually just says things like 'they were better prepared', 'they made plays and we didn't'. Notwithstanding your personal dislike for people that ran questionable programs (Tressel, Paterno, Bowden et al), they typically wouldn't let a little second guessing bother them.
Two things: One, I hope Fitz coaches here for the rest of my life. My priorities, unlike others are a) stay out of trouble b) graduate c) everything else, which, by the way, includes not looking like an idiot, preening for the camera every time you make a play. Two, can you imagine the hue and cry from any other top 25 or NFL fan base after a collapse like this year? We are a pretty mild lot, other than a random Wickerturk here and there. There aren't very many of us, and most of the passionate folks, like those here, just complain to each other and nothing more. If he is, let's say 'sensitive' to the mild criticisms that come from this motley crew (sic), can you imagine him listening to a Sunday evening radio call-in show after his NFL team had a season like we just had? All of those yahoos drunk on Bud Lite would be burning him in effigy. Or in real life.
No, he needs to stay big fish/little pond, IMHO. For his own good, and ours.
Why wouldn't there be NFL interest in Fitz? He's a great "head of the program" kind of guy.
He just fits the role perfectly. There's a lot of NFL teams that could use a coach like that.
Would his style of coaching work on NFL players who are much more motivated by money than being a part of a brotherhood of players like in college football? Who knows.
But I don't fault NFL teams for at least trying. Some college football coaches work out great in the NFL and some don't. You just don't know until somebody tries it.
He just fits the role perfectly. There's a lot of NFL teams that could use a coach like that.
Would his style of coaching work on NFL players who are much more motivated by money than being a part of a brotherhood of players like in college football? Who knows.
But I don't fault NFL teams for at least trying. Some college football coaches work out great in the NFL and some don't. You just don't know until somebody tries it.
The Problem of Fitz is that he is too much of an establishment guy and good ole boy dude.
If Jerry Jones wants a loyal rah rah coach then he should contact Morty and Phillips who love Fitz.
While the loyalty to the institution isnt necessarily misplaced, it is misplaced with his assistants. Loyalty isnt necessarily a virtue. Turk is right.
Everyone has the right to disagree with me.
For those who disagree with me, thankfully, everyone also has the right to be wrong.
Not knowing Fitz personally, but having followed the program closely for years, I admire the guy and know he's one smart dude when it comes to football. Even when he was winning every award as a 2-time All American linebacker, people were already noticing he was like another coach on the field. His attention to details and his work ethic, from all that's been reported, are best-in-class. He has his faults (too loyal) but I have no doubt he would be very successful as an NFL coach.
Yup. He is his own man, and if he was thin-skinned then he never would have had the success he has had as a player / coach. People forget that he’s a South sider... they tend to let you know what they think down there in much less friendly terms than the media.
I don’t think he’d like being a NFL coach for the same reason “true college coaches” don’t: he likes recruiting and developing young men into better men.
NFL coaches spend most of their 100 hour work weeks in the practice facilities and video rooms. College coaches spend theirs rallying their team, coaching their staffs, or on the road wooing recruits and parents.
Belichick is the greatest NFL coach for a reason, and Saban is arguably the best modern college coach for another set of reasons. Fitz is a college coach and I would bet he retires as NU’s head coach or AD... and before he’s too old to enjoy retirement.