The Chicago Bears’ offense will look a little different in 2020. Not only have the Bears brought in Nick Foles to compete with Mitchell Trubisky, but they’ve added some new offensive minds in offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo, offensive line coach Juan Castillo and tight ends coach Clancy Barone to help Matt Nagy get this offense back on track.
But before Chicago brought in Foles, the focus this offseason was scheme evaluation. The Bears had one of the worst offenses in the NFL in 2019 — and there were a number of issues other than just quarterback play.
While the Bears were far from a great offense in 2018, they were good enough with this Chicago defense. So what happened with the offense’s massive regression in 2019? For Nagy, it’s all in the details. Something that has been the focus for this Bears offensive coaching staff this offseason.
During these scheme evaluation meetings, Nagy got some fresh perspective from these new offensive coaches about what went right and what went wrong. According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, Nagy was frustrated in the flaws of the 2019 scheme, which these coaches pointed out. More than anything, he was frustrated with himself.
“I’d get pissed off and say, ‘No, put on 2018 and show them how that same play worked,’” Nagy said. “Then those coaches see that same play and say, ‘Well, 2018, that play looked pretty good.’ So that’s been our challenge: Why? Why from 2018 to 2019 did that happen? There’s a lot of things that go into that. And I will always start with myself in all of this, you have to be able to do that.
“For me, right now, forget the X’s and O’s, forget the play call and all that, I look at the word details. I think the greatest teams in all of sports are extremely detailed, and it comes naturally to them, because they do it over and over. It’s a repeated habit.”
During Breer’s discussion with Nagy, the one word that continued to come up was “details,” which is something that’s been a focus this offseason. It’s something that Nagy’s new coaching staff will help enforce.
But Nagy has the added advantage of knowing most of these players heading into Year 3 of this offense. He knows what they do well and what they don’t. Certainly having some new offensive minds — guys that haven’t been here from the start — has allowed for a fresh perspective when it comes to evaluating what concepts to keep and what to get rid of. It’s been a collaborative process for Nagy and his new coaching staff, one that he thinks will be beneficial.
“For the coaches that have been here, now going into our third year, we’ve now had the luxury of understanding our current players, what they do well, and what they don’t do well,” Nagy said. “So as a staff, we’ve seen concepts that we like, that we think are worth keeping. And concepts that, you know what, whether they were good or not in Kansas City, they’re not very good here in Chicago. So we’re gonna bag it, let’s get rid of it.
“That’s where we’re at right now, and we’re real excited about some of the newer ideas and thoughts we have, that these other coaches have brought.”
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