When you get fired midway through your first season on a team, something must’ve gone horribly wrong. Shane Waldron came over from Seattle in January to take over as offensive coordinator. The initial impression was that the Chicago Bears had made a safe choice. He’d had three decent years with the Seahawks, helping them to back-to-back winning seasons. However, it didn’t take long for red flags to start popping up. They were initially subtle, with the team struggling with penalties in training camp.
From there, Caleb Williams struggled to find easy completions, the running game did not find any space, and appalling pass protection plans couldn’t handle frequent blitzes. Things bottomed out last Sunday against New England when the Bears managed only three points, and Williams was sacked nine times. Waldron was fired after only nine games. So what on earth happened? Details have started coming out, and let’s just say they’re about as appalling as you’d expect.
We’ll start with Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune mentioning Waldron’s issue with having zero leadership presence, leading to a lack of respect among veteran players.
“How can Brown be an improvement over Shane Waldron? I think he’s more relatable to players. I think he’ll do a better job of standing in front of the offense and presenting a plan on a weekly basis. I believe he’ll have a stronger presence in meetings, and that matters. A coach has to be able to sell his game plan and strategy to players. He has to deliver a message that gets them believing in the plan. That was one of the confusing things to me about Waldron. He wasn’t dynamic in front of the room, and coordinators can overcome that if they’re on the cutting edge when it comes to scheme and strategy — but he wasn’t that either.”
D.J. Moore lamented Shane Waldron being unable to think on the fly
In the video above, he mentions how the coordinator would hear player’s requests for certain plays to be called but wouldn’t make the adjustment until a few drives later. Often, he would even wait until halftime to get something done, which explains why the team had constant issues with slow starts. Finally, Albert Breer of the MMQB exposed another insane detail. It seems Waldron rarely brought the entire offense together in meetings, instead opting to keep guys separated by position group.
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No wonder the Bears’ offense always looked so disjointed. There was zero chemistry between the guys on the field, and everybody had a different viewpoint of what the plan was supposed to be. Shane Waldron lacked basic common sense in fostering a cohesive environment and didn’t have the mental capacity to tweak his game plan when things didn’t go right early. No wonder players got fed up so fast. They realized he was entirely out of his depth. The longer he stayed in charge, the likelier it would be that the season slipped away.
I don’t want coaches to be fired. But someone has to constantly talk to them about their job (just like players need to be told how they can improve). Unfortunately, head coaches need to pay attention to development of position groups, because that is how they know whether coordinators are doing their job or not. Where are players with basics? And then with more and more sophisticated techniques? If that isn’t happening, and the position coaches knowing it is expected, the coordinators toolbox is bare when offering options in-game. This has constantly been a problem for the Bears coaches. People… Read more »
@jmscooby Attention to detail doesn’t have to equal a**hole. Your mind seems to be organized and detail-oriented, and if I read it, it’s from your comments. Any time a management or executive is interviewed, some of these factors should be criteria. Ability to communicate, articulate ideas. Organize and direct toward common goals should be baseline, but strategy and reaction to tactics are necessary at the highest levels – not just the “calm, nice guy” personality. At the top, it is difficult to be “one of the guys,” while having an overview about situations, which is why some coordinators prefer to… Read more »
Sounds very similar to descriptions of Nathaniel Hackett in both Denver and New York (not bringing entire offense together, disorganized and late meetings. I heard similar things about Getsy in Las Vegas, but didn’t hear it from players when he was in Chicago. It might have been the locker room discipline to not mention it earlier with Getsy and from players like Kmet and Moore, having seen it last year, and then repeated again this year, they feel a need to say something quickly. They saw what the results were with Fields, and seeing it repeated with Williams. (Bad organization… Read more »
Well, at least for me, I like what Brown has said regarding Caleb getting the ball out quickly to the first receiver. We have guys that can get separation. He needs to distribute the ball and let the playmakers make plays. Sacks are drive killers.
@jmscooby – and compared to some of the coaches that have been hired here, you’d probably be a fine hire. At least I think if you were making close to 1m or so you’d probably be smart enough not to ruin it by running afoul of HR…