Evaluating Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy: Why it’s complicated (2024) (2024)

The play made no sense. Ten days after Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields put on a show against the Washington Commanders thanks in part to moving pockets, there he was, sitting in the pocket with a blitzer running unimpeded at him.

Minnesota Vikings defensive end D.J. Wonnum crushed Fields for a 7-yard sack to begin Week 6.

We found out later that the idea was for Fields to get the ball out quickly, which is the best way to beat the free blitzer on that play. Why one of his reads was fullback Khari Blasingame, we don’t know, but it’s a play that seemed representative of an offense that hasn’t always seemed to fit the skill set of its quarterback.

That play has been Exhibit A in the growing case against offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, who has drawn more criticism from the fan base than anyone at Halas Hall.

He’s been the proverbial bogeyman, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

If the Bears are going to make changes to an offense that hasn’t progressed the way they’d like, the coordinator would be part of that conversation.

The blame game in the city has been familiar. Is it Fields’ fault or Getsy’s? Mitch Trubisky’s or Matt Nagy’s? Jay Cutler’s or the variety of offensive coordinators he had?

It’s never that simple.

If Matt Eberflus remains the head coach in 2024, he’ll have one of two questions to answer — should Getsy remain as Fields’ play caller, or should Getsy be the offensive coordinator for the No. 1 pick, a rookie quarterback?

Getsy spoke with The Athletic earlier this month about his game-planning philosophies and what goes into creating a call sheet for Fields and the offense.

The shift in play calls from Week 5 to Week 6 was a notable example of how Getsy would adjust to his opponent.

“You have a team that plays shell coverage or man coverage in Washington and then you have a team (in Minnesota) that only plays zone and they pressure everybody or give the illusion of pressure and drop into coverage. Those are pretty significantly different,” Getsy explained. “If you have an offense that’s been together for five or six years, you may have a plan that, ‘OK, if they do this, we’ve built this six-year repertoire of things we have answers for and we know how to get to them.’

“Whereas when you’re in a little bit of the earlier phase, Year 1 or 2, where you don’t want to put that much on your players. You want to simplify those game plans as much as you can so they can try to play fast and get the opportunities, like getting the ball (to) your playmakers and let them do the work rather than trying to create the perfect play to hit them at the exact moment.”

Getsy wanted the ball out quickly in that game. The same thing happened when the Bears played the Vikings in Minnesota, a game known for its high number of wide receiver screens. “Getting it to your skill” has been a common phrase from Eberflus — the goal of the quarterback is to get the ball in the hands of his skill players.

That’s what the Bears drew up when they felt it best countered an opposing defense, but was that putting Fields in the best position to succeed?

One coach on a team that prepared to face the Vikings this season, said, “You’re asking for trouble” by running play-action rollouts against them.

He referenced the Buccaneers trying it in Week 1 with Baker Mayfield, and that it didn’t work. Mayfield had six dropbacks outside the pocket. He was 1-for-3 passing and pressured three times.

“When Tampa tried to run rollouts against them, Baker got killed,” the coach said.

But that doesn’t mean Getsy’s calls were right. They certainly didn’t lead to anything prolific in those games.

“There are more creative ways to force the defense to defend the width of the field (than bubble screens),” one league source said.

Still, designing ways to get Fields on the move has also been challenging, because as one league source pointed out, defenses know what Fields does best. We saw that from the get-go in Week 1 when the Packers were ready to pounce every time Fields was on the move.

With that in mind, Getsy has had to adjust. If a team is going to keep Fields in the pocket, it’s beneficial to dial up plays for him to deliver the ball early in the play and let wide receiver DJ Moore get going. It just hasn’t been efficient. Whether or not that’s because of the play calls or the quarterback can depend on who you ask.

The Bears rank 23rd in yards per play and 28th in passing yards per game. They are 30th in interception rate and 21st in scoring. Fields has absolutely improved, just not at the level some hoped, which also reflects on his coordinator, whose job it is to develop Fields and get the most out of the Bears quarterback.

“If it’s at (28th), it’s not where it needs to be, right?” Eberflus said Tuesday. “We just got to continue to work on that. It’s got to … get the downfield, explosive throws. How you score in the NFL is to get explosive passes and explosive runs. That’s what you need to do.”

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Getsy brought up his first game as an NFL play caller, Week 1 last season against the 49ers. That was Fields’ 11th career start, and first with this playbook. He used it as an example to show how much has evolved.

“The way that I call a game now as opposed to the way I called the San Francisco game a year ago, that’s a credit to (Fields) and where he’s at in his career,” he said. “We’re able to do more, we’re able to put more on his plate because he can handle it.”

The offense started making gains in 2022 after the mini-bye, but Getsy often downplayed any kind of dramatic scheme change. Everyone had learned the way Fields could use his legs as a weapon, from the Bears to their opponents.

After acquiring Moore in March, the next step was elevating Fields’ game as a passer. That was a priority for general manager Ryan Poles and Fields himself. Being the franchise’s first 4,000-yard passer became a talking point. As scintillating as Fields’ running was last season, it didn’t amount to wins. And it put him in harm’s way.

To Getsy, it’s about setting Fields up to be successful for the long term, too.

“The running is what makes him exciting and it helps create some cool explosives, but it’s the rest of it that’s going to let him play in this league for a real long time,” he said. “Being able to make a protection adjustment, make the right line check, progress properly, pocket movements, all that stuff is really important for his growth and development.”

When the offense struggled mightily the first month, and Fields’ comments about the coaching staff created a firestorm — fair or not — Poles gave his opinion about why things weren’t working.

“You got a young quarterback trying to figure it out,” Poles said on Sept. 21. “You have a guy who hasn’t had the cleanest start to his career who last year, you know, with the roster, had to put the team on his back, do some unbelievable things athletically. Now he gets talent around him and has to figure out and balance when to do those cool things athletically, when to lean on others, and that is sometimes a gray place to live in. That takes time. That takes time on task for him to take that next step and everyone is on board helping him get into that place for him to be successful.”

As much as that should’ve been ironed out over the summer, it’s been part of Getsy’s job — help put Fields in position to succeed, and part of that is continuing to adapt. This past offseason, it was how to best use Moore, while also keeping Fields’ best weapon — his legs — as part of the offense, as long as defenses allowed it.

“No. 1, as a coach, who you are as a team or who you are as a unit is critical to match it to the personnel that you have,” Getsy said. “The way Mike McCarthy is with the Cowboys and Dak Prescott is different than he was with (Brett) Favre and the Packers and (Aaron) Rodgers and the Packers. Matt LaFleur has been different in different spots.

“That’s important that you have philosophies and styles of play and fundamentals, that’s who you are. And then your particular schematics, or your way of attacking somebody has to be flexible to who your players are.”

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Any changeup to the offense is done to counter the defense. Getsy wants to use what the Bears do best, but he also wants to create a menu.

“You go to a dinner and sometimes you want Italian or sometimes you want a burger,” he said. “It gives us the flexibility to go in the direction that we want to go if we have to. But we’re always going to try to be on the attack first and do what we do, and then sometimes defenses create things for you that you can’t, and you have to be able to adapt and adjust, and find which avenue is best for you.”

He said in that first game against the Vikings, Minnesota played their “15-yard-in defense against us the whole game.” The Bears didn’t expect that. Eventually they were able to hit shot plays to Moore and receiver Darnell Mooney down the middle of the field.

“Those plays weren’t even on the call sheet,” Getsy said.

Fields threw the pass to Mooney for 39 yards, then backup Tyson Bagent made a 24-yarder to Moore in the fourth quarter.

Lately, we’ve seen lots of different types of plays in short-yardage situations, likely a response to teams preparing for the Bears to sneak it. They haven’t worked. Eberflus said Tuesday, “We have to do a better job with short yardage. There’s no question about that.”

Getsy took responsibility for not having Mooney and the offense prepared for a cornerback blitz on a fourth-and-1 play in Cleveland, which looked to be a good design, as Moore got open down the field and Fields missed the first down on his own by inches.

When Roschon Johnson failed to convert a wildcat play on third-and-1 against the Cardinals, the groans could be heard up and down Lake Shore Drive.

But Fields chalked that up to execution.

“I like that play call,” he said. “We just got to block it better and execute it better. It’s that simple.”

Maybe that’s quarterback speak, but it echoes a theme we hear often from Getsy — it all comes down to execution.

Is the offensive coordinator ultimately responsible for getting players in position to execute at a high level? Does he deserve credit for a play if it’s there but not done properly, whether it’s a missed block or a tight end dropping a deep ball?

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After the loss to the Browns, when Getsy was once again public enemy No. 1 for the offense’s struggles in the second half, Eberflus was asked about the evaluation of his hand-picked offensive coordinator.

“I love Luke,” Eberflus said. “He’s a great leader in the room. Like I said, I’ll evaluate everything at the end. We’re constantly evaluating things every single day, so today after practice, like normal, we’ll meet, we’ll talk about this play, that play, ‘Hey, we like this one; let’s try to do it this way,’ or, ‘Let’s make this correction there,’ so it’s constant communication during the course of the week and then into the game.”

Bears wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator Tyke Tolbert was beginning his career as an NFL position coach when Getsy was still in college.

“Luke is one of the smartest guys I know when it comes to football,” Tolbert said earlier this month. “The main thing I can appreciate is how he brings things all together.”

As recently as three weeks ago, Getsy was receiving praise for Moore’s touchdown run on a gadget play against the Lions. The Chiefs ran the same play on Christmas, and it led to an Isiah Pacheco touchdown.

MERRY TRICKMAS!!! pic.twitter.com/WARWRmawm7

— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) December 25, 2023

A coach in the AFC said, “I think Getsy does a really good job. He has my respect.”

The tenor around the league is different from what we hear in Chicago. There’s a lot to that. For one, coaches are typically going to support other coaches. And these coaches and scouts haven’t necessarily watched every play.

It does reflect a similar disconnect between how the league views Fields. NFL players often express the utmost respect for what Fields can do. Coaches and GMs have been more skeptical.

Usually in Chicago, it seems like a good play for the offense is because of Fields and a bad one is because of Getsy. The Bears won two games with a Division II undrafted rookie quarterback. Does Getsy deserve credit for that? Fields remains, statistically, one of the worst quarterbacks in the fourth quarter. Where’s the blame for Getsy?

In the end, it’s never that simple. When an offense fails to reach expectations, everyone can be at fault.

One league source said that while he doesn’t think Getsy deserves to be fired, he could see the offensive coordinator potentially being a “scapegoat.” That same source hasn’t been wowed, either, by Getsy’s game plans.

Bringing Eberflus, Getsy and Fields all back to give it another go in 2024 toes the line of doing the same thing over and over again and not getting the desired results. If the Bears keep Eberflus and Fields but hire a new offensive coordinator, it’ll be Fields’ fourth playbook in five years dating to his final year at Ohio State.

Getsy’s play calling isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be, but it also hasn’t been good enough. How much of that is a reflection of Getsy’s potential and how much speaks to Fields’ abilities — or limitations?

Against the woeful Cardinals, the Bears offense was electric to start the game, jumping out to a 21-0 lead. Then the online critics came back for Getsy when a lull meant three consecutive punts.

To Fields, that wasn’t on the play caller. It was on the players.

“It’s about us bringing the plays to life and us executing the plays we get because we have them in there for a reason,” he said Sunday night. “We trust our coaches and we trust each other. It’s about us just taking each play at a time and really just executing.”

(Top photos: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

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