Two days after the Chicago Bears ended their 2019 season, they are already busy trying to come up with answers for improving the team.
Well, the body of the 2019 season isn’t cold yet and the Chicago Bears are already busy, looking for ways to improve for the 2020 season.
Two days after the season ended, and shortly after the team’s end of the season press conference, the Bears announced the firing of four assistant coaches: offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, offensive line coach Harry Hiestand, tight ends coach Kevin Gilbride and assistant special teams coach Brock Olivo.
If you noticed, three of the four coaches fired dealt with the offense, an area that severely struggled this season. The Bears’ struggles occurred on both the running and passing game. They ranked 29th in scoring, 29th in yards, 25th in passing touchdowns, last in yards gained per pass, 28th in rushing touchdowns, and 29th in yards per rush.
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My take with the firings is that the staff wasn’t on the same page in what they needed to do to succeed. Yes, there will also be changes to the roster, but things won’t change if the coaching staff is a mess.
Many expected quarterback Mitchell Trubisky to take a big step forward after improving somewhat in 2018. That never happened, however. In 2018, he threw for 3,223 yards, completed 66.6 percent of his passes, threw 24 touchdown passes and garnered a 95.4 passer rating. In 2019, those numbers were 3,138 yards, 63.2 percent passes completed, 17 touchdowns and a rating of 83.
Expectations were also high for rookie running back David Montgomery. While he had over 1,000 total yards from scrimmage, there were periods of time where he wasn’t involved in the offense. He only had two games in which he ran for over 100 yards and one of them was in the final game against backups.
I’m not sure Gilbride could do much with the tight ends group. Starter Trey Burton was injured for most of the season and that really hurt Trubisky. The tight end is a security blanket for the quarterback and Trubisky had that blanket yanked from him.
Where Gilbride could be criticized for is in developing Adm Shaheen. Shaheen was expected to make big contributions to this offense but he did absolutely nothing. He only had nine catches for 74 yards. He was shut down late in the season but part of the reason for that could be the disappointment head coach Matt Nagy had in him. He went as far as to question Shaheen’s commitment.
This is what he said about him when reporters asked why Shaheen didn’t play and wasn’t on the injury report in Week 10 against the Detroit Lions, per NBC Sports Chicago:
"We want all of our players to be able to be completely detailed and play hard and do everything they can to be the best player they can be."
Shaheen didn’t play again for the rest of the season.
If that was the main reason for Gilbride’s departure, some wonder why Dave Ragone, the quarterbacks coach, wasn’t also dismissed after Trubisky obviously regressed.
Adam Jahns, the senior Chicago Bears writer for The Athletic, wrote that Helfrich and Hiestand were both tasked with coming up with the game plan for the running game.
Helfrich was supposed to come up with plays that could work and Hiestand would come up with blocking schemes along the offensive line to help those plays succeed. Whatever they came up with didn’t work and now the team is moving forward without them.
A little background on the #Bears' pending moves with Hiestand and Helfrich. It's my understanding that they were in charge of the running game.
— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) December 31, 2019
Some may criticize these moves as scapegoating but it is clear that some things were going on behind the scenes that affected the offense. Yes, Nagy was stubborn in holding on to the playcalling duties, but if he didn’t feel confident enough with Helfrich why would he give that up? If you go down, you’re going to want to go down your way.
There are already rumors that the Chicago Bears may go after fired New York Giants head coach Pat Shurmur. While he struggled in New York, Shurmur took over a Vikings offense that ranked 23rd in points scored and 28th in yards gained in 2016 and turned it around the next season with rankings improving to 10th in points scored and 11th in yards gained.
Also, he is an Andy Reid disciple just as Nagy is. That could make Nagy feel more comfortable with handing over the play sheet. They both have the same offensive philosophy and could work together better than what happened with Helfrich.
There will be more changes coming throughout the offseason. It should make for an interesting time. Hopefully, those changes ultimately result in better results in 2020.