Former Bears coach Lovie Smith took a lot of heat for his inability to find somebody to guide the offense. Soon after his release, an even more egregious shirking of responsibility came to light: Smith had never even hired an offensive coordinator for this past season. “Mike Tice” is completely fictional.

“The random timeouts, his inability to get plays out on the field, they all make sense now,” said QB Jay Cutler. “Coach Smith had to wait for his own personal Tyler Durden to saunter in and tell him what to do.”

Smith managed to pass Tice off as real to management for three years by way of confusing and vaguely condescending internal memos. One such memo accused former general manager Jerry Angelo of being “too biased towards reality in as far as what may or may not be happening on or off the field of play with respect to the coaching staff.” Another one said, “The past two out of three coaches inquired into have proven themselves to be people.”

When current GM Phil Emery attempted to contact Tice for a season-ending interview this week, the number on file rang Smith’s home phone.

“Upon asking Smith to speak to coach Tice, he said ‘Alright,’ but then it sounded like he dropped the phone,” said Emery. “I listened to him chuckle at a Gilmore Girls rerun for the next 20 minutes.”

“Mike Tice” and several of the voices in Smith’s head are now being interviewed for coaching gigs in Buffalo, Washington and a few other cities that just need something interesting to happen.

Bandwagon Dan