Is Ron Rivera your 2010 Chicago Bears Head Coach?

Define irony: a guy you fired three years ago because you thought you could do a better job without him coming back to take your job because you couldn’t do it without him.

Maybe not poetic enough for Alanis Morissette but it could be a reality for Lovie Smith.

Lost in the high and residual buzz of the Jay Cutler acquisition was the January decision of Smith to take over the defensive play-calling. That decision officially started the clock on Lovie’s head coaching tenure in Chicago.

What Lovie announced with that move was “I [Lovie] the defensive guru can fix this with coaching rather than changing players.” This season is now a referendum on Smith’s coaching ability.

What happens if the defense doesn’t turn it around? What happens if the Bears don’t make the playoffs?

It might seem crazy to suggest that the Bears wouldn’t make the playoffs in ’09. After all they were 9-7 last year and upgraded the two most important positions on offense with Cutler at QB and Orlando Pace at LT, they have to get better.

But that 9-7 easily could’ve been 7-9 or 6-10 given how poorly they played over certain stretches. And both the Packers and Vikings are primed for playoff runs themselves, rarely do three teams from the same division make it.

So put yourself in Jerry Angelo’s shoes. You’ve just put the team right back into full fledged win-now mode with the bold trade for Jay Cutler, you’ve got 4 years remaining on your own contract and are dealing with a defensive coach who can’t get the defense together and hasn’t made the playoffs in three years.

Would you stand pat under those circumstances? I am not sure Angelo would.

So if you let Lovie go, with two years left on the contract he signed after the Super Bowl season, you know the McCaskey’s aren’t shelling out big bucks for a Mike Shanahan or Bill Cowher. That limits the options.

And on the West Coast there is an ex-Bear player and coach who could be leading the Chargers defense on a Super Bowl run. A former linebacker, who looked to be a head coach candidate just a few years ago, was forced to step back to linebackers coach, and is now on the rise again. A coach, who knows our personnel and has the utmost respect of the established veterans on this team.

Ron Rivera sure would sound like a good option for this team, and as a first time head coach he would come cheap.

Maybe Lovie leads the defense to a bounces back season.

Maybe the Bears — with Cutler at the helm — make a deep playoff run.

Maybe none of this comes to fruition.

But don’t fool yourself, the clock is running on Lovie’s time leading the Monsters of the Midway. If he can’t get it done the logical replacement would be the guy he fired 2 years ago. Isn’t that ironic.