Bears set to hire Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator
The Chicago Bears will soon officially announce their new offensive coordinator. According to NFL Network’s insider Tom Pelissero, the Bears are working towards a deal to hire Shane Waldron as their new offensive coach. Waldron spent the last three years as the Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator, where he worked one year with Russell Wilson and […]
The Chicago Bears will soon officially announce their new offensive coordinator. According to NFL Network’s insider Tom Pelissero, the Bears are working towards a deal to hire Shane Waldron as their new offensive coach.
Waldron spent the last three years as the Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator, where he worked one year with Russell Wilson and two with Geno Smith as the starting quarterback. He was one of the responsible coaches to transform Smith from a career backup into a good starter.
Before that, Waldron had worked under Sean McVay for the Los Angeles Rams. He was part of the inaugural McVay's staff in 2017 as a tight ends coach, and then was promoted to passing game coordinator in 2018 — for one season, in 2019, he was also the quarterbacks coach.
Waldron has been in the NFL for more than 20 years. He started as an operations intern with the New England Patriots in 2002. Then, Waldron was promoted to operations assistant in 2004. He started his coaching career at Notre Dame, but came back to the Patriots in 2008 as an offensive quality control coach and then tight ends coach in 2009. After one season in the UFL and five in college football, he returned to the NFL again as the Washington Commanders quality control in 2016, where he met Sean McVay. So, he followed the coach to Los Angeles one year later.
"Obviously, you want to have somebody that's a great teacher," Bears head coach Eberflus said during the process. "I think that's important because you know he has to coach the coaches to coach the position. And I think that's the No. 1 trait of any great coach — you have to be able to have the innovation to really look at the players that you have and be able to help enhance and put those guys in position to succeed and to get explosives and to move the ball down the field."
The Bears interviewed Klint Kubiak (San Francisco 49ers passing game coordinator), Liam Coen (Kentucky offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Greg Olson (Seattle Seahawks quarterbacks coach), Greg Roman (former San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator), Thomas Brown (Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator), Marcus Brady (Philadelphia Eagles senior offensive assistant), Kilff Kingsbury (USC quarterbacks coach and former Arizona Cardinals head coach), and Zac Robinson (Los Angeles Rams pass game coordinator/quarterbacks coach). They tried to talk to Kellen Moore, but the Los Angeles Chargers blocked a potential lateral move.
Now, the big decision ahead is what the Bears will do at quarterback. They have the opportunity to draft Caleb Williams or Drake Maye with the first overall pick and move on from Justin Fields, or keep the veteran and trade down in the draft. Another possible scenario, even if less likely, is to draft a prospect and keep Fields at the same time.
The Chicago Bears will rebuild almost their entire offensive coaching staff. So far, the team has retained only tight ends coach Jim Dray, offensive line coach Chris Morgan, assistant offensive line coach Luke Steckel, and offensive quality control Zach Cable.
After the season, the Bears fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko, passing game coordinator/wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert, and assistant tight ends coach Tim Zetts. During the season, they had already fired running backs coach David Walker and assistant quarterbacks coach Omar Young.
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