Matt Nagy was not satisfied with how the Chicago Bears offensive line was being coached in 2019. They were too passive at times and prone to mental errors that kept costing the offense scoring opportunities. So he made a somewhat surprising decision. He fired offensive line coach Harry Hiestand and replaced him with longtime NFL veteran Juan Castillo.
Nagy worked with Castillo back in Philadelphia. So there was familiarity between the two. The head coach seemed to think the 60-year old brought the traits he wanted. What exactly are those traits? Namely a constant grinding mentality with a message above all else. To be physical. Castillo believes in being the aggressor and that is what Nagy wants. Hard to argue that.
Bears color analyst Tom Thayer knows a thing or two about offensive line play. He was a fixture of that great front in the 1980s at guard. After witnessing the Castillo experience in training camp thus far, he immediately had flashbacks.
“It starts with the traits that I’ve seen out of Juan Castillo, the new offensive line coach. He’s verbally a lot like Coach Dick Stanfel, my old offensive line coach. He gets his point across repeatedly and loudly so everybody there can hear it. Which I think is really important. Because as an offensive line coach you may be correcting one player, but it affects every guy on the offensive line. So to kick this thing off, I think Juan Castillo is really a good mentor to a lot of these young offensive linemen and even the experienced ones.”
Juan Castillo just got paid the highest of compliments
Younger Bears fans probably don’t recall Stanfel’s name. Don’t feel bad. The man has a long history of being overlooked. He was a five-time All-Pro guard for the Detroit Lions in the 1950s. He helped them win two NFL championships. After retiring, he got into the coaching ranks and was eventually lured to Chicago by Neill Armstrong to become the Bears’ offensive line coach. A position he would go on to hold for over a decade.
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The track record speaks for itself. Chicago had the best rushing attack of the 1980s, at one point finishing 1st in the NFL four-straight seasons. He helped Jimbo Covert eventually land in the Hall of Fame while Jay Hilgenberg and Mark Bortz became Pro Bowlers. Stanfel himself would land in Canton posthumously in 2016.
So when Thayer compared him to Castillo, that is a huge compliment.
