The Bears fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko on Wednesday, a source said. Making lower-level staff changes appears to signal that head coach Matt Eberflus will return for the 2024 season.
The Bears rarely looked good offensively during Getsy’s two seasons. They ranked 23rd in the NFL at 19.4 points per game in 2022 and 18th at 21.4 this season.
He never clicked philosophically with quarterback Justin Fields, either, though both described it as a good relationship. Over 2022 and ‘23, the Bears had the fewest passing yards in the NFL and fifth-lowest collective passer rating. They did, however, rank second in rushing over those seasons, though a big part of that was Fields running for 1,143 yards in ‘22 and 657 in ‘23.
Fields went public in Week 3 with frustration that he was being over-coached, then tried to clean that mess up by hugging Getsy in front of TV cameras at the start of practice that day and issuing a semi-retraction afterward. But what he said stuck.
“When you’re fed a lot of information at a point in time and you’re trying to think about that info when you’re playing, it doesn’t let you play like yourself,” Fields said.
He and Getsy seemed like a bad fit. Fields probably wouldn’t be Getsy’s ideal quarterback, and Getsy’s offense probably wouldn’t be Fields’ ideal system. The Bears could not have brought them back together, and there’s a good chance neither will be back next season as the team considers its options with the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft.
Fields was not the only player to vent about Getsy’s offense.
Wide receiver Darnell Mooney was a 1,000-yard receiver in 2021, but saw his numbers decline upon Getsy’s arrival and had career lows of 31 catches, 414 yards and one touchdown this season.
He hinted at discontent last month when asked about the offense.
“Honestly, guys, I will not be a distraction to myself or my team,” he said when asked about whether he fit with Getsy’s scheme. “Whether that’s an answer for yes or no, I’m not going to be a distraction for any of my guys on the team or myself, so those questions may be answered whenever the season ends. For now, I’m trying to win these next couple of games.”
Even wide receiver DJ Moore, who had the best season of his career, didn’t seem pleased. After the Bears managed just three field goals in a 17-9 loss to the Packers to end the season, he was asked what needs to change about the offense and questioned the strategy.
“We’ve gotta go back and look at our explosives [in] the games that we won and look at if we had explosives when we lost,” he said. “Try to balance [if] we’re going to be an explosive team or if we’re going to be a running team that’s going to play off the clock.”
On follow-up questions, Moore described his confidence in Getsy as “fine” and said the Bears “just need to call the plays that put us in position to have explosives down the field or catch-and-runs. We’ve just gotta be an explosive team and not a team that’s just behind the sticks.”
When pressed on whether Getsy was the right play caller for this roster, Moore replied, “You think so?” Then he said, “I’m asking you. Because I just answered the question... It really doesn’t matter who’s calling the plays. We’ve just got to be explosive and do what we do as players.”
Getsy was one of coach Matt Eberflus’ first hires when he took the job in January 2022. He said he wanted someone from Packers coach Matt LaFleur’s staff because he always found that offense difficult to face.
That might have been largely because of former Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Getsy joined the Packers as a quality control coach in 2014 and worked his way up to wide receivers coach, then, after one season as the offensive coordinator at Mississippi State, went back to the Packers in 2019 as Rodgers’ position coach. Rodgers already had won two MVPs and a Super Bowl at that point and won two more MVPs in 2020 and ‘21.
The next offensive coordinator will walk into an interesting situation no matter what the Bears plan on doing at quarterback. He will either get a shot at tailoring the offense to maximize Fields’ strengths or be integral in helping them decide which quarterback to take in the draft, where they hold the No. 1 overall pick.
