Jerry Angelo

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Jerry Angelo is the American football general manager for the NFL's Chicago Bears franchise since 2001. Prior to joining the Chicago Bears, Angelo spent 14 years overseeing Tampa Bay Buccaneers' scouting department as their Director of Player Personnel.

Angelo began his career in the NFL as a scout for the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys in the early 1980s. Four years later he moved on to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that had experienced brief success. An expansion team in the mid 1970s the Buccaneers lost the NFC championship game in 1979 to the Philadelphia Eagles. What followed was a chaotic series of player tragedies and setbacks that sent the team into a slump. A succession of coaches and numerous roster changes failed to revive the team throughout the 1980s. Angelo was associated with the appearance of front office divisions and management mistakes. By the late 1990s his 14 year tenure in Tampa Bay was perceived as successful as the Buccanneers made the playoffs 3 times from 1997-2000. With new ownership of the franchise, Angelo moved on to the Chicago Bears.

Since taking over the Chicago Bears in 2001, Angelo had a tenuous road ahead of him. Dick Jauron, the coach at the time, had in his contract that he was to have control of the player roster, which entitled him to the GM powers that Angelo was supposed to have. The relationship between the 2 was at best, grating, and at worst, downright horrible.

Then, during the 2003 season, Ed McCaskey died, thus spreading out the shares he had, and allowing the other McCaskey children to take the majority share away from Virginia and Michael McCaskey. Thus this led to Angelo finally being elevated to full GM and powers (instead of name only). It also signaled the end of Dick Jauron, who was fired at the end of the season.

Angelo then sought a new coach. The short list was Nick Saban, Russ Grimm, and Lovie Smith. Nick Saban was choice #1, but wanted the GM powers Angelo just acquired. Saban went on to a short tenure with the Miami Dolphins prior to returning to college football. Russ Grimm was the second choice but was not hired.

Lovie Smith was hired by Angelo as the coach of the Chicago Bears. Since that hiring, all personnel moves made by Angelo have been successful. The Bears have gone from 5-11 in 2004, to 11-6 in 2005 (including a playoff loss to the Carolina Panthers) to a team in 2006 that went 13-3 and made it to Super Bowl XLI. Angelo was ranked as the eighth best general manager in professional sports in February of 2007. [1]

Since the 2004 season, sites calling for the head of Jerry Angelo, such as firejerryangelo.com, have seen less and less traffic, and have not updated key areas of their sites to reflect the GM's current success.^{[citation needed]}