A Bears offseason of unrelenting and sometimes suffocating debate, which even has fans who grew up with the internet longing for the days when there was no internet, shows no signs of letting up.
On the quietest weekend of the NFL calendar — the Sunday before the Super Bowl — the Raiders threw another log into a raging brush fire of Bears quarterback debate with the reported imminent hiring of former Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy as their OC.
Multiple reports indicated the Raiders are nearing a deal to sign Getsy after Kliff Kingsbury dropped out of consideration (he joined the Commanders on Sunday). Getsy was one of five candidates to be interviewed for the job, along with UCLA coach Chip Kelly, former Browns offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt (who was hired by the Patriots on Thursday) and Steelers receivers coach Mike Sullivan.
The anticipated Getsy hire adds another layer of intrigue to Justin Fields’ future, stoking speculation that with Getsy as the coordinator, the Raiders are another potential trade partner for the Bears if general manager Ryan Poles selects USC quarterback Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.
And it also adds some interesting fuel to the debate over the culpability for Fields’ underwhelming growth and the Bears’ offensive issues in Getsy’s two seasons as offensive coordinator.
The Bears fired Getsy, with coach Matt Eberflus making it clear he needed to see more.
‘‘The growth and the development of the offense needed to be better than what it was,” he said.
And many Bears fans — the most vocal ones, anyway — blamed Getsy for hindering the development of a quarterback with exceptional athletic skills by not playing to his strengths, by not giving him enough protection and by being an inconsistent, if not out-and-out poor, play-caller — among many other grievances.
The league doesn’t wholeheartedly agree with that assessment. Getsy had multiple interviews with the Saints and at least one interview with the Patriots for their offensive coordinator jobs. And the Raiders are expected to hire him.
In Getsy’s second season, the Bears were second in the NFL in rushing. They improved from 23rd to 18th in scoring and from 28th to 20th in yards. They won two games with undrafted rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent starting.
On the other hand, while the Bears’ offense made progress under Getsy, it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t quickly enough. The Bears were 27th in passing yards. Fields’ 86.3 passer rating was 21st among quarterbacks with eight or more starts. His QBR, a measurement that includes his rushing yardage, dropped from 56.3 in 2022 to 46.1 in 2023. And Fields was dogged by the same issues at the end of the season as the beginning. Fields and Bagent combined were starkly worse in the fourth quarter (45.1 rating as starters) than in the first three quarters (95.5).
So while Getsy, 39, gets a chance to prove the Fields supporters wrong with the Raiders, the Bears are hoping for an upgrade with Shane Waldron as their offensive coordinator.
Waldron comes to Chicago with three things on his resumé in his favor: a history of being hired by successful coaches (Bill Belichick, Sean McVay, Pete Carroll), three seasons as a play-caller with the Seahawks and — last but not least — being the guy who made a quarterback out of Geno Smith, an NFL journeyman who blossomed at 32 in Waldron’s offense.
“He just allowed me to be me — that was the biggest part,” Smith said Saturday at the Pro Bowl Games in Orlando, Florida. “He focused on my strengths and minimized my weaknesses.”
That sounds like just what the Bears need — whether they stick with Fields or draft a quarterback.
“He’s a perfectionist,” Smith said. “Hard worker. He loves ball. I mean, he really loves football. He’s going to sacrifice everything that he has to make sure the quarterbacks, the offense and the team are gonna be good. He’s gonna win a lot of games.”
