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Clayton claims Whisenhunt, Grimm were almost brought in to coach Bears

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Christian Petersen

ESPN's John Clayton told Arizona Sports 620 that Bruce Arians was almost hired as head coach of the Chicago Bears and that he would have brought Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm with him.

While we are on the topic of John Clayton and his various reports today, I found this latest rumor to be quite interesting.

Apparently, Bruce Arians, assistant coach of the Colts, was in line to become the next head coach of the Chicago Bears. The Bears were looking to replace Lovie Smith after they missed the playoffs with a 10-6 record.

But instead of hiring Arians, the Bears brass opted to go for Marc Trestman, former head coach of the CFL Montreal Alouettes.

What is surprising is that Arians was pretty much locked in to taking the job and was planning on bringing a couple of former Cardinals employees with him. Ken Whisenhunt was supposed to come as the offensive coordinator and Russ Grimm was going to be Arians' offensive line coach.

That never panned out, according to Clayton, because Trestman managed to secure former Saints offensive line coach/interim head coach Aaron Kromer at the last minute to be his offensive coordinator/offensive line coach in Chicago. At that point, the Bears chose Trestman over Arians.

Whisenhunt was also linked to the Philadelphia Eagles as a 'strong candidate' to become their next head coach before they managed to sneak Chip Kelly in through the back door. One could surmise that Russ Grimm would have gone to Philly with Whiz had that happened.

More reports have Whisenhunt going to Denver to replace Mike McCoy as Peyton Manning's offensive coordinator.

Arians is now a candidate for the Cardinals head coaching gig and it appears that Russ Grimm may be on the outside looking in.

Just another crazy day in the NFL, I guess.

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