The Chicago Bears made offense a priority when the team hired former Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy as head coach. They added even more spice to the mix when they scooped up former Oregon Ducks head coach Mark Helfrich as the Bears’ new offensive coordinator. The move, which was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, was officially announced on Friday.
Why the Bears hired Mark Helfrich as offensive coordinator, in a 2-minute read
The former Oregon head coach will make his first step into the NFL.
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Who is Mark Helfrich? He was Oregon’s heir apparent to Chip Kelly, coming to the school as offensive coordinator when Kelly was promoted to head coach in 2009. In the next four years, the ridiculously efficient and explosive Oregon offense gave opponents fits and Kelly was eventually hired by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013, clearing the way for Helfrich to become the Ducks’ head coach.
Oregon went to the College Football Playoff in 2014 under Helfrich, but eventually lackluster recruiting and bad defense tore down the perennial powerhouse and the coach was fired after four seasons in 2016 with a 37-16 record.
Helfrich didn’t coach a team during the 2017 season and will venture into the NFL for the first time in 2018.
Are the Bears going to run a spread offense now? Probably not, but expect to see some creativity and a lot more “college” offensive looks than you’re used to, NFL fan. Helfrich took advantage of speed mismatches during his time at Oregon and Nagy did the same with the Chiefs in 2017.
Don’t expect to see play cards on the Bears sideline or 20 seconds between plays, though.
What Chicago hopes this means is more opportunities in space for explosive players like Tarik Cohen, more running lanes for Pro Bowl running back Jordan Howard, and more open receivers and higher efficiency for quarterback Mitchell Trubisky.
Could this be a disaster? Well, of course.
Helfrich was in demand in the last month with Kelly reportedly hoping for him to be the UCLA offensive coordinator and Arizona angling for him to be head coach. But that doesn’t mean the NFL is a good idea.
His time at Oregon crashed and burned, and there’s no shortage of skeptics about the viability of his offensive stylings in the NFL where defenses are significantly faster. It’s also possible he was propped up by the successes of Kelly and Scott Frost, and withered without them.
There are many questions that won’t be fully answered until we see the Bears on the field in the fall, but one thing that’s for sure is that Chicago just became a much more intriguing team to keep an eye on.
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