I think DA is Getting Year 4
Are you too young to recall the Ditka years? The pre-Finks years? Finks when he refused to work with free agency? The chaos of the Haslet era crowned by a nearly inexplicable playoff win?
To be completely fair to Finks, the type of FA he dealt with was mostly limited, "Plan B Free Agency" that NFL experimented with beginning in the late 80's-early 90's before Reggie White's famous NFLPA case overturned the "Rozelle Rule" restricting unrestricted FA that came about after the 1992 season. Finks was a great GM, shrewd evaluator of talent, but he was also brash, impulsive, wasnt always best communicator and aside from having Fran Tarkenton in Minnesota, didnt believe a SB-CALIBER team needed a great QB. Tarkenton being traded back to Minnesota wasnt his idea, it was Bud Grant correcting former HC Norm van Brocklin's mistake trading Fran to NYG in 1966. Finks was a great GM in Minnesota and New Orleans, but his record in Chicago was very mixed: sure, he drafted Walter Payton and eventually the core of those great 80's Bears defenses, but he also ignored his top scouts pleas to draft Joe Montana in 1979 and refused a trade offer from Oakland before the 1979 season for Kenny Stabler, saying "we're happy with who we have" and the Bears roster of late 70's QB's were awful. Bob Avelini? Vince Evans? Really Finks????? Drafting a great QB of just putting a lot of emphasis on one in general were never big priorities for Jim Finks.
By the time modern NFL era of unrestricted FA had arrived, Finks was mostly out of the game, dying of lung cancer due to a life-long smoking habit and the "three-headed" monster of Mora, Jim Miller, and Bill Kuharich and their inept, bumbling partnership was born. I know for a fact Mora never respected or viewed Kuharich with any sense of deference after his promotion to GM in 1994, he was always an interloper, a bit unprincipled career opportunist and Kuharich never had any real authority to push his views over onto Mora regarding FA or draft-related issues.