What?!

In a curious at best, lousy timed at worst move, the Chicago Bears fired their Director of Pro Personnel Bobby DePaul today. DePaul has served the Bears in this capacity for more than 9 years, and was seen (along with Greg Gabriel) as one of the big behind the scenes pieces that helped build the 2006 Super Bowl team.

DePaul was responsible for not only key evaluations of Thomas Jones, but also of John Tait, Roberto Garza, Ruben Brown, and Fred Miller to form one of the best Bears offensive lines in recent memory. DePaul was also seen as the architect of the Jay Cutler trade along with bringing in key members of the coaching staff Ron Rivera and Dave Toub from Philadelphia.

So after knowing all of this, two questions emerge. One, what has DePaul specifically done, or not done to warrant firing him? Two, if he was going to be fired...why fire him now?! Not only is Free Agency coming up in 17 days, but the NFL Scouting Combine starts on February 24. Last time I checked, it's important that a Director of Pro Personnel attend the combine, or at the very least one should be in place by then. Does this mean the Bears have a candidate already lined up? That's pretty doubtful considering how they circled the wagons hiring 2 new coordinators, one of which was promoted from within because nobody else wanted the damn job.

Obviously, there has to be more to this than "the organization wants to make a change" token answer. DePaul must have said or done the magic word because it makes no sense to fire him now. One thing that is for sure is the timing of this move is really awful, and it's another indicator that the Bears have no idea what they are doing.