June has arrived, and with it, the end of any illusions that the offseason is still at its peak. Some moves may still be made here and there, but the rushes are over. That is especially true on the coaching front. Any hirings that were going to happen have already happened. The Chicago Bears have completed the overhaul of their new staff, and something has stuck out. Nobody is criticizing them for their changes on the offensive side.
Why? Namely, because the NFL doesn’t seem to be in a rush to scoop up the guys they sent packing. In 2020, Matt Nagy made the unusual decision to overhaul his offensive staff. Four members were fired or allowed to leave and replaced with fresh faces. It didn’t work out as hoped. Nagy’s offense was still one of the worst in the league (26th and 24th) during the two following years. If anything, it hit bottom in 2021. While Justin Fields got tons of flak for not performing better, many others blamed the staff for not doing a better job helping him.
Looking back now, they had a point. The Chicago Bears blew it.
Credit to Aaron Leming of Bear Report for spotting this. Several members of that group have struggled to find decent work. Nagy himself only secured a quarterbacks coach position back with his old team in Kansas City. As for the people he considered essential to developing Fields, let’s just say it doesn’t look pretty.
- Offensive coordinator Bill Lazor – Unemployed
- QBs coach John DeFilippo – Unemployed
- RBs coach Michael Pitre – Falcons RBs coach
- WRs coach Mike Furrey – Limestone head coach
- Tes coach Clancy Barone – Unemployed
- OL coach Juan Castillo – Commanders TEs coach
This list doesn’t even include Nagy’s original offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich who still doesn’t have a job in football despite getting fired in 2020. The reality is his sales pitch to the Chicago Bears in 2018 must’ve been one for the ages because it’s impossible to understand how somebody could have put together a worse offensive structure than that. It is proof again that prior experience doesn’t always mean quality.
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Matt Eberflus took a different approach. He opted for people with solid track records and experience in the specific style of system he wanted. This way, everything stood a chance of coming together faster for the players, including his young quarterback. Time will tell if he’s right, but at least he has something Nagy didn’t. An identity.
