New head coach Matt Nagy and his staff are still getting familiar with each. This is not a series of guys who are buddies in the off-season. True they sometimes worked with each other in the past but this is a group assembled more on merit than familiarity. That’s exactly how he wants it for the Chicago Bears. A refreshing approach to be sure.
It’s still early. There isn’t a set plan in place for how this staff will approach things. That will evolve from their collective vision over the next few months. At the same time it’s already becoming clear they share one value above most. Special teams coordinator Chris Tabor put it best when speaking with the media.
“One thing that we say is adapt or die,” Tabor explained. “The dinosaurs couldn’t figure it out and they became extinct.
“Coaches, they don’t figure it out, they get fired. So we’ll adapt, and I’m looking forward to the challenge of it.”
It might sound a bit oversimplified but it is the fundamental truth of football. Look back through history. Often the teams that win championships are the ones constantly able to invent and reinvent themselves. Being able to stay ahead of the curve in some form or facet. Believe it or not the Bears used to be one of those teams. Yet somewhere along the way they got lost.
Chicago Bears adaptability has been slumbering for years
There’s nothing with taking pride in the history of your franchise. That’s part of what makes football great. At the same time it feels like the Bears and their fans are clinging to it a little too much these days. Perhaps because the franchise is mired in old traditions. Can anybody remember the last time they were at the forefront of anything? It wasn’t always that way.
There was a time that Chicago was the envy of the football world. Much of this thanks to the tireless efforts of team owner and founder George Halas. During the early days of his football career he embraced all sorts of new innovations for the sport. Among them included daily practices, tarps covering the field and putting assistant coaches in the press box. Among his biggest contributions was bringing the T-formation offense to the NFL, which ushered in the Bears dynasty of the 1940s.
It didn’t end there though. Halas kept trying new things in the years to come. Among the most unheralded of his achievements was turning the tight end position into an offensive weapon. No team was doing it when he introduced Mike Ditka to the world in the 1960s. Not long after that though Halas retired, and the forward-thinking seemed to stop completely.
Buddy Ryan remains last true pioneer the Bears have employed
It wasn’t until 1978 when the Bears hired a chubby, brash young coach from Minnesota named Buddy Ryan where the creative juices started flowing again. As the NFL began shifting towards more of a passing league, teams were looking for ways to stop quarterbacks from having so much success. From this Ryan crafted the now iconic “46 defense.” It was a layered scheme with a simple object: throw as many defenders at the quarterback as it takes to get him on the ground.
Indeed when Ryan truly started to implement that defense in the early 1980s, opponents were completely baffled. They didn’t have any idea how to counter it. As a result the Bears suffocated teams like few others have in history. Their 1984 team still holds the NFL record in sacks. Their 1986 team held the record for fewest points allowed for 14 years. Yet the 1985 team was the best of the bunch, pitching back-to-back shutouts in the playoffs en route to a Super Bowl championship.
Since then it always feels like another franchise is at the forefront of the next big thing in the NFL. The 49ers ushered in the West Coast offense. Cincinnati and Buffalo introduced the no-huddle. Pittsburgh brought about the zone-blitz scheme. Those are just some of the example and all led to huge success for their respective franchises.
It’s clear Nagy and his staff are anxious to put Chicago back on the map. How will they do this? That’s what they’re banding together to find out.
