Dave McGinnis, a longtime NFL assistant coach known for his tenure with the Chicago Bears and Arizona Cardinals, died on Monday at the age of 74.

McGinnis served as the Bears’ linebackers coach from 1986 to 1995 before moving on to become the defensive coordinator for the Cardinals in 1996. In early 1999, he was the Bears’ top candidate to succeed head coach Dave Wannstedt after Wannstedt was dismissed in January of that year. However, a highly unusual sequence of events unfolded during the hiring process that ultimately led McGinnis to decline the position.

Following interviews with five candidates, the Bears announced plans to introduce McGinnis as their 12th head coach, issuing a press release and scheduling a news conference. Unbeknownst to the organization, McGinnis had not yet agreed to contract terms. He was reportedly unsettled by the process and dissatisfied with the contract offer, which he felt did not meet industry standards. As a result, the scheduled news conference was first delayed and then canceled, with McGinnis opting to walk away from the opportunity. The Bears subsequently issued an apology for the misstep.

The team quickly moved on, hiring Dick Jauron as head coach the following day. The controversy surrounding the failed McGinnis hire contributed to significant leadership changes within the Bears. Three weeks later, Virginia McCaskey, the team’s matriarch, replaced her son Michael McCaskey as team president and appointed vice president of operations Ted Phillips to that role. This marked the first time in franchise history that the president position was held by someone outside the Halas and McCaskey families.

Reflecting on the incident years later, McGinnis recounted in a 2018 interview that he woke up on the second day of his interview to find that he had already been publicly announced as the Bears’ head coach without having accepted the job. Upon arriving at the team’s headquarters at Halas Hall, he learned from a radio report that he was scheduled to be formally introduced at 11 a.m.

McGinnis eventually became a head coach with the Arizona Cardinals, taking over as interim head coach in 2000 and compiling a 17-40 record over four seasons. After his coaching career, he spent nearly a decade as an analyst for Tennessee Titans radio broadcasts.