Matt Eberflus made several notable hires for his new coaching staff, but by far the most surprising had to be Luke Getsy. Not because the man was unqualified. One could argue he was overdue for such an opportunity in the NFL after several successful seasons as a wide receivers coach and then passing game coordinator. However, people had difficulty understanding why he elected to leave a stable situation with the Green Bay Packers for the unknown in Chicago. Their arch-rivals. Something no prominent coach has ever done.
People have wondered what his reasoning could be for such a move. The general belief among insiders is that Getsy wanted the opportunity to call plays. Even if he’d been promoted in Green Bay to replace Nathaniel Hackett, which seemed likely, he wouldn’t have had that honor. Head coach Matt Lafleur has always been the one calling plays. So he elected to gamble on himself by taking a job with that kind of power elsewhere.
When asked about this, Getsy had a different explanation, though.
“It’s honestly this whole process of getting to be around new men, new ideas, and getting to create something for us, like to create our offense is what is most exciting. I truly don’t believe it is about me. I truly don’t believe [the offense] will be mine. That will never be spoken. I just don’t believe that. And so, as I’ve gone through this interview process with a lot of different guys, the creativity and the teaching skills and the processes have been fascinating to me, so I can’t wait to get to work with these guys every single day and hopefully build something special.”
It sounds like Getsy was eager to craft something entirely his own. Something he has never really gotten to do. When offensive coordinator at Mississippi State in 2018, he was running an offense directed by head coach Joe Moorhead. As the passing game coordinator in Green Bay, he had input but it was still Lafleur’s show. This will mark the first time he has total control of an offense from top to bottom.
Eberflus is a defensive-minded coach. While he will have directives on how he wants the offense to function in terms of identity, everything else will be left up to Getsy and his staff. It sounds like the two men are fully aligned on what they want. An attacking offense that is smart situationally and protects the football. When two men are in sync with a clear vision like that, good things tend to follow.
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Luke Getsy makes it clear everything centers on Justin Fields
He isn’t dumb. He knows that this is a quarterback-driven sport. If you maximize that position, everything else usually falls into place. Getsy reiterated his first job is to determine what Fields does best. Figure out what he is most comfortable with and craft the new offense around those strengths. Once that is done, he can shift focus to the other ten starters and determine what they do best in order to finally craft a playbook.
Expectations are Luke Getsy will utilize hybrid philosophies in this approach. A mix of run-pass option concepts he learned under Moorhead in college and the Shanahan-style outside zone run scheme he learned under Lafleur in Green Bay. Not a bad combination. Fields is more than capable of running an effective RPO offense while their tandem of David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert at running back could thrive in an outside zone run system.
The tricky part is solving the other personnel issues.
Chicago has serious problems both along the offensive line and at wide receiver. If Getsy wants to get the most out of Fields, he’ll need GM Ryan Poles to find better players in those areas. Something Ryan Pace wasn’t able to do.
