The reason the GMs for the Bears and Colts Got Fired? T.J. Yates

T.J. Yates is the 3rd string quarterback for the Houston Texans. He had a 2-3 record in the games he played and he won the most important game in Texans history, their first playoff game on Saturday (last night).

So what does that have to do with the Indy Colts and Chicago Bears? Both teams fired their GMs but kept their coaches. This is important because it means the owners think/realize that the coaches did their best with the pieces they were give. And who gives the coaches those pieces? The GMs.

Back to Yates. Texans' GM Rick Smith drafted Yates in the 5th round. Was it to be a pure back-up or possible starter is unknown, but it is known that Smith assumed/thought that Yates would be able to play and win games for them. No one ever thinks they'll be that far down the depth chart due to injury, but have to be prepared for it to happen.

Indy lost Peyton Manning for the season and all they had was Curtis Painter. They didn't show the confidence in Painter right from the beginning, they went out and signed Kerry Collins to be their starter. And when he went down to injury, it was the Painter era and that had disastrious results.

Chicago lost Jay Cutler to injury and turned to Caleb Hanie, and the talking head opinion at the time was that Hanie would be just good enough to limp the Bears into the playoffs, since they were already set up well by Cutler. That never happened and it took the Bears GM awhile to give up on Hanie.

It's the GMs job to provide the pieces to field a winning team. The back-up shouldn't be as good as the starter but needs to be capable of winning games (see Patriots with Matt Cassel and Green Bay with Matt Flynn). It's the responsiblity of the GM to prepare the team's personal for the day the starter goes down. That means they need to provide the team with a back-up that will and can win games.

Both Indy's GM, Bill Polian (and son Chris Polian) and the Bear's GM, Jerry Angelo, failed to do that. That's the biggest reason they lost their jobs. The Indy situation was worse then the Bears. Indy's defense went down. This was a team built around Manning and what he was capable of doing. When he went down, the team wasn't the same. That's the fault of the GM.

You might say "But Kansas City had a similar situation. Matt Cassel went down and Tyler Palko was horrible". And you would be correct in mentioning that. The difference between KC and Indy/Chicago is that KC's GM is newer. Angelo and the Polians have been in their jobs for years, Pioli is on year 4. That gives him a little bit of leeway, but not much. There is no excuse for Polians and Angelo.

A 5th round, 3rd string QB cost two long-tenured GMs their jobs by highlighting how badly they had failed at it in recent years.