Presumably, Luke Getsy offered more specifics about how he’ll develop quarterback Justin Fields when he interviewed for the Bears’ offensive coordinator job than did Thursday.
The only public promises Getsy made were simple: he’d get to know Fields — and determine what he does best — before deciding what will work. Getsy will blend his Mike Shanahan-style outside zone run games with a deep passing game learned at the feet of Akron head coach Joe Moorhead. But he’ll also be open-minded when it comes to the Bears’ second-year quarterback.
“This is going to take time,” Getsy said via Zoom. “We’re gonna have to get to know each other, and through that process the focus will be dialing into what he does best and then matching that with the other 10 guys on the field and what they do best.”
Getsy first met Fields during the pre-draft process last year and has huddled with him at Halas Hall since taking the Bears job 12 days ago.
“[I was] super impressed with the man, the person,” Getsy said. “You can feel the determination, the will inside of him as he was communicating to me. He was super sharp with what they did at Ohio State [last year],” he said. “And then just again just the brief conversation that we were able to have together here … the same exact thing just jumped back out at me again. So I’m looking forward to getting to know him deeper, obviously. But I’m very optimistic about the type of person that he is and I think the will and the desire that he wants to be a great leader, too.
“So I think it’s a really cool opportunity with a young guy who I think has a really good drive.”
On the day the Bears introduced defensive coordinator Alan Williams and Richard Hightower — and hired safeties coach Andre Curtis, the Seahawks’ defensive pass-game coordinator the last four years — Getsy talked more about culture and philosophy than a playbook. He even challenged the notion of a playbook — at least during the early parts of the offseason.
“There’s gonna be conceptual learning that’s gonna happen, that we’re gonna put together,” he said. “And then as we get into the players and get to know them and they get to know us, and we figure out what we do well, then we’ll start diving into more specifically, as you would say, ‘playbook’ type of plays.’”
That playbook will look a lot like what the Packers ran when Getsy was Aaron Rodgers’ quarterbacks coach the last three seasons. Building an amazing offense around Rodgers didn’t happen overnight after head coach Matt LaFleur and Getsy arrived in 2019.
“It wasn’t like we just came in and threw stuff at him and he just did it,” he said. “So that was a process of putting it, laying it down conceptually, philosophically, and then as we grew together, we were able to build something pretty special.”
He hopes to do the same thing with Fields.
“We’re gonna establish the culture first but then we’re gonna dive into this identity,” he said. “That’s gonna be driven by the personnel, the coaching staff, and we’re going to become something. There’s not one specific answer to that right now. We’ve got to dive into what everybody does best …
“I starts with the quarterback. This is a quarterback-driven offense. The things the quarterback position does well, that’s gonna be the driver of who we are. And then we’re gonna marry that to what the other guys on the football field do well. That’s the purpose of the offensive coordinator, right?”
