One of the bigger surprises of early 2017 was the Chicago Bears again making changes to their wide receivers coaching position. It marks the third time in three years it has happened under head coach John Fox. This time though it got a little creative. Apparently Fox and the rest of the brass did tireless research scouring the college ranks. They asked for any names worth exploring. One that kept coming up was Zach Azzanni of Tennessee.
After some negotiating the two sides came to an agreement and he took the job. The general feeling was the Bears wanted a fresh voice in the locker room. Somebody who had new, different ways for developing players at the position. Not a surprise after watching every key name at the position underachieve and deal with rampant injury problems. None more so than promising former first round pick Kevin White.
Azzanni is beyond excited to get a chance to work with the young talent. Not only that but he had some interesting comments about the seemingly luckless start to his NFL career.
Zach Azzanni thinks White failure was about more than luck
Kevin Fishbain of the Northwest Herald caught up with him during the first rookie minicamp practice of the year. The new coach had plenty to say.
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“His past two position coaches weren’t able to develop him as much as they would have liked because of injury setback, right? So I get to almost start from square one, to be quite honest with you. Nothing against those guys, they just weren’t able to get him out there a lot. Some of the habits he had, bad habits from college, he probably still has, and I’m able to come in and try to break those habits.”
Azzanni didn’t come right out and say it, but his opinion is pretty clear. Part of the reason White hasn’t taken off already is due to poor habits the previous coaches failed to erase in him. That may be a bit unfair but is it totally untrue? After all Mike Groh and Curtis Johnson have since left for other teams. Was it voluntary or were they ushered out the door? Impossible to say but Azzanni didn’t lack for confidence in his own process.
The 40-year old understands by far the biggest issue White is dealing with. He has used the entire offseason up to this point focused solely on correcting it. So far the team brass and even White himself are apparently surprised by the early results.
“Didn’t have to do the route tree at West Virginia. Just didn’t. Not right or wrong or different, just didn’t have to. So we’ve been working on that hard, some of his breaking points stuff. A lot of times when you’re a big guy like that, stopping and changing direction is hard. We’ve really been working on it. He ran a curl the other day and a bunch of mouths dropped, like, ‘Wow, we have not seen Kevin do that in a long time.’ I think it got him excited.”
There is no possible way to describe how important it is that Kevin White start to emerge in 2017. Most people have already given up hope he’ll ever live up to his draft billing. With Alshon Jeffery gone, people aren’t sure what to make of the Bears receiving corps. If White were to suddenly emerge as a legitimate threat it would change the entire outlook of the offense. Not just this season but moving forward as well.
Mitch Trubisky would inherit an arsenal consisting of White, Jordan Howard and hopefully the promising young tight end Adam Shaheen as well. All with a solid offensive line up front. Azzanni knows how important his job is this year. Most critics are laughing at the Bears receiving corps in the wake of Jeffery’s exit. It would be quite the first impression if he showed them otherwise. White is the key.
