Bears fire OC Helfrich, coaches Hiestand (OL), Gilbride (TE), Olivo (ST Asst.)

[Bears Whiskey Nut]

I have heard Matt Kafka’s name as a rumor for the next OC. He’s currently the QB coach in KC. And their kid has done pretty well.

[IE]

Juan Castillo hired as new OLine coach. Worked with Nagy in Philly.

Hmm, is this guy considered an upgrade to Heistand? Looks like he didn't work in 2019 after being let go from the Bills after the 2018 season. Reading about him on the Bills subreddit, the knocks they have against him are the same things that were said about Heistand. Basically he didn't have a lot to work with and wasn't able to accomplish much in his 2 years with the Bills. He has past experience with Nagy though so hopefully that helps.

How'd the Bills do in the running game once that fella left? If Nagy pulls off an offensive improvement by surrounding himself with yes-men and fall guys instead of changing himself... I'll cheer. And I'll be completely shocked.

[Rusty Trombagent]

I have heard Matt Kafka’s name as a rumor for the next OC. He’s currently the QB coach in KC. And their kid has done pretty well.

He'd have to be released from his contract I'd think, he cant just make a move. And I'd be floored if he'd leave in KC, since it's pretty much a head coach factory these days, especially with Bieniemy getting multiple interviews this cycle.

[G08]

25. Chicago Bears

The Bears took an expected step backward this season, spearheaded by regression in volatile areas from Mitchell Trubisky. Part of that decline, though, was worse play from the offensive line. When the Bears allowed pressure this season, they allowed it fast. Their average time to pressure allowed of 2.37 seconds was 29th in the league, ahead of only the Dolphins, Chargers and Falcons. A silver lining for the group came from James Daniels after he switched over to left guard. Daniels’ 73.9 overall grade at left guard ranked fifth among all qualifiers at the position.

[G08]

I have heard Matt Kafka’s name as a rumor for the next OC. He’s currently the QB coach in KC. And their kid has done pretty well.

He'd have to be released from his contract I'd think, he cant just make a move. And I'd be floored if he'd leave in KC, since it's pretty much a head coach factory these days, especially with Bieniemy getting multiple interviews this cycle.

It would be considered a lateral move if he came here as OC so yeah the Chiefs would have to give him permission.

[mmmc_35]

How'd the Bills do in the running game once that fella left? If Nagy pulls off an offensive improvement by surrounding himself with yes-men and fall guys instead of changing himself... I'll cheer. And I'll be completely shocked.

I agree with your premise, not necessarily your context. That team got more talented. However i agree Hiestand has always been considered a good line coach. But talent and scheme have something to do with this situation. I truly hope this isn't a yes man.

The Bears job isn't attractive. Hopefully Reids belief in Castro here is a positive. Trusted him so much he let him coach the defense. I assume that means he is a leader type.

[Z Bear]

Keep in mind that Nagy had people referred to him for his first staff, not necessarily who he wanted to work with. If I remember correctly, Nagy had never met Helfrich prior to their first phone call just before the job offer. He might have sounded great on the phone, but then had a style/personality/work either/etc. clash with Nagy once they started working on a daily basis.

People also need to keep in mind that 8-8 is an average NFL team, so Nagy has one good season and one average season....there is no reason to send him packing. He and Pace obviously saw the teams short comings and did something about it as quickly as they could. Also, Trubisky is not Nagy's hand picked QB, that was all Pace and John Fox. Sure he said glowing things about him at his first presser, but there was no way he was coming in and saying there was no way to have long term success with the guy. He would of never got the job in the first place.

[mmmc_35]

Devils advocate. Nagy needs coaches to be referred to him. He was an OC for a split second. He's been a coach for 10 years all under Ried. All Andy's disciples got coaching jobs pulling from the same pools. He doesnt have a wide net.

[Moriarty]

People also need to keep in mind that 8-8 is an average NFL team, so Nagy has one good season and one average season

That's completely misleading.

In 2017, the Bears already had a top 10 defense - and then they added Mack to it right when Nagy joined.
The offense was 29th and he was hired as the offensive wizard who was going to fix it.
In 2019 the offense was 29th again and set all sorts of horrific team marks for incompetence, which have been posted in other threads, but can be compiled, if need be.
2019 was a colossal failure for & by Nagy.

[Z Bear]

The 8-8 record is not misleading, it should be the only category that should matter to fans. Are you really going to complain if they have the 29th ranked offense and win a Super Bowl? John Fox had the same defense and could not get to 8-8. The 2019 offense was horrendous mostly because of an offensive line that could not block due to injuries and scheme. Pace and Nagy have already done something about it in firing Helfrich and Heistad. As long as they do something about RG (pun intended), they will have addressed one the main areas that held the team back. The other main area is QB, but they cannot do much about that this off season.

[wab]

The 8-8 record is not misleading, it should be the only category that should matter to fans. Are you really going to complain if they have the 29th ranked offense and win a Super Bowl? John Fox had the same defense and could not get to 8-8. The 2019 offense was horrendous mostly because of an offensive line that could not block due to injuries and scheme. Pace and Nagy have already done something about it in firing Helfrich and Heistad. As long as they do something about RG (pun intended), they will have addressed one the main areas that held the team back. The other main area is QB, but they cannot do much about that this off season.

Easy now. The pitchforks are out and they are intended to be used.

[Moriarty]

The 8-8 record is not misleading, it should be the only category that should matter to fans. Are you really going to complain if they have the 29th ranked offense and win a Super Bowl? John Fox had the same defense and could not get to 8-8. The 2019 offense was horrendous mostly because of an offensive line that could not block due to injuries and scheme. Pace and Nagy have already done something about it in firing Helfrich and Heistad. As long as they do something about RG (pun intended), they will have addressed one the main areas that held the team back. The other main area is QB, but they cannot do much about that this off season.

• The final record is not the only category that should matter to fans.
• Nobody wins the Super Bowl with the 29th offense.
• Fixing the offense was Nagy's job. He failed miserably in 2019.
• John Fox had the same defense? You can't be serious. The defense without Khalil Mack is the same as the defense with him? If that's true, Pace has to be fired today for how much he gave up. And we need to cut Mack ASAP to free up all the cap space being wasted on a player who doesn't make a difference.
• The offensive line did not have unusually impactful injury problems. One player (Long) out of five was bad/out, which has been true for four years running. Massie was out a few games at the end, but they'd proven themselves terrible long before that occurred.
• Whatever optimism you want to inject about the future has nothing to do with evaluating what has happened already.

[Otis Day]

Hmm, is this guy considered an upgrade to Heistand? Looks like he didn't work in 2019 after being let go from the Bills after the 2018 season. Reading about him on the Bills subreddit, the knocks they have against him are the same things that were said about Heistand. Basically he didn't have a lot to work with and wasn't able to accomplish much in his 2 years with the Bills. He has past experience with Nagy though so hopefully that helps.

How'd the Bills do in the running game once that fella left? If Nagy pulls off an offensive improvement by surrounding himself with yes-men and fall guys instead of changing himself... I'll cheer. And I'll be completely shocked.

Bills run game from 2018-19 showed very little difference. Both years the averged 29 carries a game. Last yr 4.2/rush, this year 4.4/rush. Last year total rush yds = 1984, this year 2054.

Overall OL rank in 18 was #17, this year #15.

[The Marshall Plan]

People also need to keep in mind that 8-8 is an average NFL team, so Nagy has one good season and one average season

That's completely misleading.

In 2017, the Bears already had a top 10 defense - and then they added Mack to it right when Nagy joined.
The offense was 29th and he was hired as the offensive wizard who was going to fix it.
In 2019 the offense was 29th again and set all sorts of horrific team marks for incompetence, which have been posted in other threads, but can be compiled, if need be.
2019 was a colossal failure for & by Nagy.

I don’t see how this can be argued with.

[BR0D1E86]

I'm not sure what I'd do if Ragone failed upwards this way. He should be fired, not promoted.

[Xee]

People also need to keep in mind that 8-8 is an average NFL team, so Nagy has one good season and one average season

That's completely misleading.

In 2017, the Bears already had a top 10 defense - and then they added Mack to it right when Nagy joined.
The offense was 29th and he was hired as the offensive wizard who was going to fix it.
In 2019 the offense was 29th again and set all sorts of horrific team marks for incompetence, which have been posted in other threads, but can be compiled, if need be.
2019 was a colossal failure for & by Nagy.

So if not moving the needle from '17 to '19 is considered a colossal failure, then what do you call going from 29th in scoring to 9th from '17 to '18? I think most people would call that an improvement.

[Moriarty]

That's completely misleading.

In 2017, the Bears already had a top 10 defense - and then they added Mack to it right when Nagy joined.
The offense was 29th and he was hired as the offensive wizard who was going to fix it.
In 2019 the offense was 29th again and set all sorts of horrific team marks for incompetence, which have been posted in other threads, but can be compiled, if need be.
2019 was a colossal failure for & by Nagy.

So if not moving the needle from '17 to '19 is considered a colossal failure, then what do you call going from 29th in scoring to 9th from '17 to '18? I think most people would call that an improvement.

Sure.

It didn't carryover to 2019, and a lot of that was facilitated by phenomenal amounts of turnovers from the defense (which didn't occur again in 2019 and probably has a lot to do with points scored crashing back down), but there was certainly some improvement there.

Regardless, the part I'm objecting to is the 8-8 in 2019 being an average season for Nagy part.

[BR0D1E86]

That's completely misleading.

In 2017, the Bears already had a top 10 defense - and then they added Mack to it right when Nagy joined.
The offense was 29th and he was hired as the offensive wizard who was going to fix it.
In 2019 the offense was 29th again and set all sorts of horrific team marks for incompetence, which have been posted in other threads, but can be compiled, if need be.
2019 was a colossal failure for & by Nagy.

So if not moving the needle from '17 to '19 is considered a colossal failure, then what do you call going from 29th in scoring to 9th from '17 to '18? I think most people would call that an improvement.

It was only in very, very small part due to any offensive improvement though. The defense scored a ton of points and gave a ton of short fields to the offense.

The offense remained relatively inept

[Xee]

So if not moving the needle from '17 to '19 is considered a colossal failure, then what do you call going from 29th in scoring to 9th from '17 to '18? I think most people would call that an improvement.

Sure.

It didn't carryover to 2019, and a lot of that was facilitated by phenomenal amounts of turnovers from the defense (which didn't occur again in 2019 and probably has a lot to do with points scored crashing back down), but there was certainly some improvement there.

Regardless, the part I'm objecting to is the 8-8 in 2019 being an average season for Nagy part.

I guess the discussion here around the 8-8 record comes down to, does context matter? Some people say no, others say yes. For those that say the latter, there seems to be an additional debate around what exactly the context is. Do we look at like we were a couple bad decisions/kicks away from a 10-6 record and making the playoffs and we were better than our record indicates or that everyone under-performed and we were actually much worse than our record indicated. That last one further branches out to the question of why did everyone under-perform and there's a ton of thoughts on that as well.

Personally, if you're arguing about context, I don't think there is a clear answer since it all comes down to subjectivity and if you're a glass-is-half-full or half-empty person. But I guess that's what we're all here for otherwise things would get very dull.

[UOK]

Personally, if you're arguing about context, I don't think there is a clear answer since it all comes down to subjectivity and if you're a glass-is-half-full or half-empty person. But I guess that's what we're all here for otherwise things would get very dull.

Indeed. Essentially the context is, "your argument and perspective are baseless unless they generally point toward the targets of my arguments."

[Z Bear]

There are 256 regular season football games and 32 teams, that puts your mean average per team at 8-8 (hence our record this year being average). Fans expectations are one thing, but hitting the statistical norm of regular season win totals are another thing. The Bears over-achieved last year due to luck with injuries and turnovers. We did not get as lucky in either regard this year and regressed to normal from over-achieving. 90% of this board put the Bears' win total in 2018 at 9 games or less. Due to over-achieving last year many had unrealistic expectations this year. People outside the organization had the Bears regressing, and many of us disputed those notions instead of listening to them. The Bears are indeed a very average football team, they have an above average defense and below average offense. As others have eluded to, the turnovers masked the deficiencies on offense last year, but if you look at yardage the Bears were definitely below average, that is why ranking teams' offense on points scored is dumb.

[The Cooler King]

Sure.

It didn't carryover to 2019, and a lot of that was facilitated by phenomenal amounts of turnovers from the defense (which didn't occur again in 2019 and probably has a lot to do with points scored crashing back down), but there was certainly some improvement there.

Regardless, the part I'm objecting to is the 8-8 in 2019 being an average season for Nagy part.

I guess the discussion here around the 8-8 record comes down to, does context matter? Some people say no, others say yes. For those that say the latter, there seems to be an additional debate around what exactly the context is. Do we look at like we were a couple bad decisions/kicks away from a 10-6 record and making the playoffs and we were better than our record indicates or that everyone under-performed and we were actually much worse than our record indicated. That last one further branches out to the question of why did everyone under-perform and there's a ton of thoughts on that as well.

Personally, if you're arguing about context, I don't think there is a clear answer since it all comes down to subjectivity and if you're a glass-is-half-full or half-empty person. But I guess that's what we're all here for otherwise things would get very dull.

I think the main problem is that people hear average and expect consistently average, and that's just not how it works. I think when you look at the whole result and context they were an average team. In many areas they didn't meet expectations, but this league comes at you quick sometimes. One year you're a pro-bowler, the next you're a bottom tier player.

I think on the whole this was a team with players who met expectations and many who dropped. And really no one stepped up and exceeded expectations to offset the droppers. Thus they were average on the whole, when many expected them to be good, some even great.

[Drone7]

Hiestand and Gilbride will get paid for coaching nothing this season. Got paid for coaching next to nothing last season.

[KOP_Snake]

No one has pointed out that Nagy had this team at 3-1 before key injuries. Week 4&5 were really bad injury-wise and that's when we started seeing the 8-8 team that lies before us now.

That is mainly when Hicks went down and Mack subsequently slowed down.

[UOK]

No one has pointed out that Nagy had this team at 3-1 before key injuries. Week 4&5 were really bad injury-wise and that's when we started seeing the 8-8 team that lies before us now.

That is mainly when Hicks went down and Mack subsequently slowed down.

Agreed fully. I have no idea how the injuries weren’t a bigger talking point. Hicks alone being out cost this team minimum 1 win. Long being out screwed the entire offensive line plan for the season.

[dplank]

Meh. All teams get injuries, and the Bears have had way worse injury years than this one. Remember when we had a starting WR tandem of Josh Bellamy and Tanner Gentry cause like 42 of our receivers were hurt? We were 3-1, but two of those games were the Redskins and Broncos. We went 4-1 from Week 10-15, with all those guys still hurt. Why? We played shitty teams. Detroit twice, Giants, Cowpokes, lost to the only decent team of the bunch with the Rams.

Nagy and Pagano both did a poor job adjusting. We all saw how simplifying things and running more power rushing attack benefitted the offense, but Nagy kept going back to his cutesy shit. Same with Pagano.

Bottom line is that we were a very average team this year, exactly deserving of the 8-8 record we ended with. We beat bad teams and lost to good teams, consistently. The ebbs and flows of our winning and losing stretches had less to do with injuries and more to do with who we were playing. Sux but true.

[G08]

Found out today that Mike Kafka's contract expires at the end of this season, so he'll be free to leave and join us IF that is what he wants.

Why he would want to leave Mahomes is beyond me, especially if their current OC becomes a head coach in 2020.

Then again, Kafka IS from Illinois...

[Drone7]

Bottom line is that we were a very average team this year, exactly deserving of the 8-8 record we ended with. We beat bad teams and lost to good teams, consistently. The ebbs and flows of our winning and losing stretches had less to do with injuries and more to do with who we were playing. Sux but true.

Cited for truth.

[Otis Day]

Found out today that Mike Kafka's contract expires at the end of this season, so he'll be free to leave and join us IF that is what he wants.

Why he would want to leave Mahomes is beyond me, especially if their current OC becomes a head coach in 2020.

Then again, Kafka IS from Illinois...

Be interesting to follow. I would assume either job he would be OC in name only. Can't see either coach letting him be THE OC.

The Illinois part is a good reason to stay away, fucking taxes in this state and the fucking crooked politicians.

[mmmc_35]

Found out today that Mike Kafka's contract expires at the end of this season, so he'll be free to leave and join us IF that is what he wants.

Why he would want to leave Mahomes is beyond me, especially if their current OC becomes a head coach in 2020.

Then again, Kafka IS from Illinois...

Generally ego drives us. I think smart move is to stay in KC. Build resume on the backs of Andy and Mahomes. Ego says let me fix chicago and my bank account becomes historic.