The Chicago Bears have been rather busy since their 8-8 regular season concluded a little under a month ago. They have since completely revamped their offensive coaching staff. They extended Eddie Jackson to a four-year, $58.4 million contract that includes $33 million in total guarantees, making Jackson the highest-paid safety in NFL history. Even the Bears players themselves have remained aggressive as they seem to be leading the charge in the recruitment of Pro Bowl TE Eric Ebron.
The Juan Castillo hiring
When it comes to all the moves the Bears have made early into the offseason, Jeff Hughes from the DaBearsBlog.com claims the Juan Castillo hiring seems to be the one with the most impact.
“The most pivotal decision made thus far (and unsurprisingly the first) was hiring Juan Castillo to rebuild the offensive line/run game. How did that happen? It’s pretty simple. Matt Nagy is in constant communication with Andy Reid, his mentor and friend. Reid’s recommendation was to get the run game fixed by getting Castillo. (And Andy was instrumental on making it happen.) This offense doesn’t want to be run first. But it needs to be run effectively. And under Helfrich/Hiestand, the rushing attack was disjointed and wildly ineffective. Relying on RPO concepts meant relying on the quarterback to make the right decision. He didn’t do that very often in 2019. Castillo will move the run game back down the hill.”
Jeff Hughes is very knowledgeable and reliable when it comes to both his insight and sources he has within Halas Hall. So when he drops nuggets like this, it’s best to take them as serious as possible.
There is still a lot of work left to do
Although the Bears have started the offseason in an aggressive way, they can’t let their foot off the gas now. They still need to attack both free agency and the draft in the same decisive manner. How they perform in both of those categories will be huge for the team heading into 2020.
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