People like to think that every offensive coordinator or offensive-minded head coach is a pure genius. Somebody who dreamt up an entire playbook on his own and crafted each and every play in it like a brush stroke on a painting. The same goes for Chicago Bears fans with Matt Nagy. He’s the offensive genius they’ve waited for, right? Except it’s almost never like that.
There’s an old saying by the iconic artist, Pablo Picasso. “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” What he was saying was that there’s almost never anything original in art. People steal ideas from each other all the time, meshing them together with the hope of expanding horizons and making it better.
It’s the same for coaches in football. They say it’s a copycat league and that’s true. There’s stealing of plays and ideas from each other all the time. Some do it successfully, and others don’t. The key difference between the successful ones and failures is being able to take a play and understand how it can be adjusted to fit your style and your personnel.
According to new team consultant Brad Childress, head coach Matt Nagy proved quite proficient at this in Kansas City.
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Matt Nagy and Chiefs stole one of their best plays of 2017
The Kansas City Chiefs had the #5 offense in the NFL last season. It got started in a big way on opening night against the New England Patriots where they put up 42 points on the defending champions. One of the signature plays of the game was a bomb from Alex Smith to running back Kareem Hunt for a touchdown to put the Chiefs back on top late 28-27.
It seems that play had first been discovered by them a year earlier. Not on another pro team either, but way down in the FCS college ranks.
“Brad Childress, now a Chicago Bears consultant and the recently named head coach for Atlanta’s entry in the Alliance of American Football, was among the Chiefs assistants assigned to study college quarterbacks before the 2016 draft. The Chiefs didn’t have a realistic shot at Wentz, but they studied him and came to appreciate the Bison’s offense under head coach Chris Klieman and then-coordinator Tim Polasek.
“You are looking at the player, but as coaches you can’t help but delving into, ‘OK, what kind of offense are they playing?'” Childress said. “They ran so much fly-sweep stuff. We had Tyreek [Hill]. We were like, ‘Man, that fits us perfectly.’ We Didn’t even have Hunt then. We Were thinking of Tyreek on the sweep and Tyreek coming out of the backfield running the seam.”
The Play
That’s the sort of in-depth work and above all lack of ego, this new offensive staff brings to the table. They’re not about having everything be their way. It’s about finding things that work. If we have to steal a play from a college team? Fine. Pluck a few from a divisional rival? Great. Whatever needs to be done to make your offense a success is the top priority. There’s no room for selfishness.
This feels like the complete opposite of what the Bears had the past few years. Not just with John Fox and Dowell Loggains but going all the way back to the end of the Lovie Smith era. The offense seemed stuck in ages past, unwilling to adapt to inevitable changes going around the league. For the first time, it feels like those chains have been removed.
