This offseason has been unlike any other for Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy and his team. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, NFL clubs have been forced to conduct offseason programs from an entirely virtual format.
The hope is that teams will soon be able to hit the practice field as restrictions loosen, but a virtual offseason is certainly no walk in the park. Especially following a disappointing 8-8 season where you want to fix the things that went wrong. And the best place to do that is on the practice field.
Still, Nagy has found creative ways to keep his players interested during their virtual meetings, including special guest speakers. While Nagy has kept those guest speakers under wraps, a new article from the Los Angeles Times has let us know the identity of one of those speakers: Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers.
Considering Rivers grew up a Bears fan watching Gale Sayers, Rivers jumped at the opportunity to address the team when approached by Nagy.
“Talking to the Bears, the whole team, are you kidding me?” Rivers said, via the Los Angeles Times. “I was jacked up about that.”
Rivers addressed the Bears players and staff for 30 minutes and answered questions for an additional 45 minutes. But it could’ve been longer, as Nagy was receiving text messages from players and coaches with additional questions for Rivers.
“I’ve heard a lot of people talk to groups and Doc, to me, not to take anything away from anybody else, but that was one of the most powerful hour-and-15-minute discussions that I had selfishly for myself and we had as a team,” Nagy said. “Man, there was so much good stuff in there. A lot of the stuff I don’t even want to tell because I don’t want other people to know.”
During the roughly 75-minute session, Rivers detailed some personal stories that he felt would help the Bears in their quest to achieve greatness.
Doc Rivers told the Bears about the time he scored 54 points in a high school game, only to have his father push him to play even harder. How in 2007 he arranged a Duck Boat tour of Boston for Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Garnett soon after the Celtics’ superstar trio was formed — an outing he used to have the trio envision traveling the same route the following summer during a championship parade.
Bears players wanted to know about Kawhi Leonard’s leadership style. He’s quiet, Rivers told them, but became more vocal as the season went on.
Rivers has been in high demand this offseason, as he’s also spoken to the Los Angeles Rams and Indianapolis Colts this offseason
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