The Chicago Bears took drastic action and fired multiple assistant coaches, but was it the correct move?
Shortly after the Chicago Bears end of year press conference, the team announced it had parted ways with offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, offensive line coach Harry Hiestand, tight ends coach Kevin Gilbride, and special teams assistance coach Brock Olivo.
Funny enough, Ryan Pace was asked about the possibility of coaching changes just hours earlier, and refused to comment, noting they needed to take a look at things.
Well we clearly know either that was a lie or Pace is a quick thinker. I’m guessing it was the former. And if it was, then shame on Ryan Pace, Matt Nagy, and George McCaskey for refusing to subject themselves to questions about the decision.
In any event, while some shakeup might be good and will satisfy a certain segment of the fan base, it feels somewhat like these coaches were sacrificial lambs who are being held accountable for the failures of others, notably Pace, Matt Nagy, Chris Tabor, and Dave Ragone.
Let’s start with Gilbride, who was in charge of squeezing production out of a collection of misfit tight ends. Somehow he takes the fall for Trey Burton’s plethora of injury complications and Adam Shaheen’s inability to stay on the field. His biggest sin was not getting significant production out of Jesper Horsted, J.P. Holtz, Ben Braunecker, and Bradley Sowell. How dare he?
How about Olivo? Was he the one responsible for not communicating Eddy Pineiro’s spot preference? Otherwise, what did he do to warrant being fired that shouldn’t fall at the feet of the actual special teams coordinator?
Next, we come to Harry Hiestand and Mark Helfrich who were apparently fired because they were responsible for the running scheme. The problem with that is if Nagy didn’t like the scheme, as the head coach, he had the authority to change it. It’s the same scheme as last year so it’s not as if this was a surprise to Nagy.
In addition, Hiestand is regarded as an extremely knowledgable and talented teacher who is clearly better at being a tactician than a scheme developer. He still had value to this team and firing him feels like they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Finally, someone much smarter than me has to explain how Ragone has kept his job considering Nagy and Pace admitted today that Mitchell Trubisky has poor footwork and has to improve in reading defenses. If a quarterback with more than 40 starts is still struggling in those core competencies, then part of the blame must be assigned to the quarterbacks coach.
Unfortunately, this is part of the business, but it sure seems like they are taking the fall for Pace’s failure to give them competent personnel, and Nagy’s failure to take control of his offense. We’ll see whether any of this makes a difference next year.