AP

When the Bears were looking for a head coach to replace Lovie Smith, their list of candidates skewed heavily toward the offensive side of the ball.

Former 49ers head coach and Bears icon Mike Singletary was the exception. There were suggestions that Singletary, now the Vikings’ assistant head coach/linebackers coach, was just getting a look because he fulfilled the Rooney Rule requirements or because ownership requested a cursory meeting with a former Bears great. Sean Jensen of the Chicago Sun-Times points out that the Bears had already checked the Rooney Rule box when they spoke to Singletary while passing along quotes from Bears General Manager Phil Emery and chairman George McCaskey vouching for the seriousness of their interest.

Singletary felt it was a serious look as well and said that he hopes to get another head coaching job again in the near future. Singletary went 18-22 in parts of three seasons with the Niners and was asked if he thought the short history of minority candidates getting second chances would work against him getting another job.

“I just believe there are a lot of guys out there that are worthy,” Singletary said. “But there are also some white coaches out there who are worthy who don’t get interviews. So it goes both ways.”

If anything’s hurting Singletary right now other than his own record in San Francisco it could be the fact that the 49ers have had so much success in the last two years. Seeing Jim Harbaugh succeed with many of the same players that Singletary coached doesn’t look great for Singletary in hindsight, although there have been some key additions (Aldon Smith and Colin Kaepernick, for starters) that make it hard to read that much into it.