Report: Bears to hire Chad Morton as running backs coach

According to Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Bears are set to hire former Seahawks coach Chad Morton.

It seems the Chicago Bears had themselves a busy Tuesday working to hire offensive coaches. According to Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Bears are hiring Chad Morton to be their running backs coach, which would round out the position coaches on the offensive staff. Morton is the third reported coaching hire over the last 24 hours, joining wide receivers coach Chris Beatty and passing game coordinator Thomas Brown.

Morton, like Brown, has prior ties to new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. The two worked together for the last three years on the Seattle Seahawks, but his coaching journey started out in a place Bears fans know all too well, however.

After a productive playing career as a running back, Morton began his coaching career with the Green Bay Packers and was a special teams assistant from 2010–2013. From there, he joined the Seahawks in a similar role before moving to their offensive staff as a running backs assistant from 2015–2016. In 2017, he was promoted to running backs coach and trudged through a tough season where the Seahawks had a bottom-five rushing attack.

Those struggles didn’t last long, though. Seattle led the league in rushing the following season, averaging 160 yards per game, and had another top-five attack in 2019. In 2022, Morton became the Seahawks run game coordinator in addition to his role as running backs coach.

Morton helped get the most out of Chris Carson for a few seasons and developed younger talents such as Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet. Now, he rounds out Waldron’s staff and will be tasked with further developing players like Roschon Johnson and Khalil Herbert in the backfield.