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Chicago Bears Hire Mark Helfrich as Offensive Coordinator

By Bill Zimmerman

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - NOVEMBER 19: Head coach Mark Helfrich of the Oregon Ducks looks on in the first half of their game against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium on November 19, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - NOVEMBER 19: Head coach Mark Helfrich of the Oregon Ducks looks on in the first half of their game against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium on November 19, 2016 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images) /
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The Chicago Bears have hired former Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich as their new offensive coordinator.

Matt Nagy’s coaching staff is really starting to come into shape. The Chicago Bears have hired Mark Helfrich as their new offensive coordinator. Helfrich was out of coaching last year, but spent 2009 to 2016 with the Oregon Ducks as their offensive coordinator and also as their head coach.

Helfrich worked under Chip Kelly at Oregon, creating one of the most dynamic offenses in college football. When Kelly left for the NFL, Helfrich was elevated to the head coach of the team. Helfrich’s teams steadily got worse over time, but their offense consistently remained as one of the elite units in the country.

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When Helfrich was the OC at Oregon, Kelly called plays, much like Nagy will do in Chicago, but Helfrich was very involved in scheming, planning and utilizing personnel. Helfrich used the spread offense in college and will bring some of those elements to the Bears’ offense. Interestingly, it’s a similar offense to the one Mitch Trubisky ran at North Carolina.

The Bears offense is going to look very differently than it did this past season. While they will still use a lot of the zone blocking schemes for running the football, schemes that Jordan Howard thrives in, there should also be an increase in RPOs (Run-Pass Option) with Trubisky. With the addition of Helfrich, fans can also expect a much more modernized offense that spreads out the defense and tries to give playmakers like Tarik Cohen the ball in space and force the defense to tackle him individually, rather than gang tackle at the line of scrimmage.

There will be plenty to discuss about the Helfrich-Nagy-Trubisky dynamic and what it means for the offense, but now that the offensive coaching staff is largely in place, the Bears will focus their attention to Vic Fangio and trying to retain the popular defensive coordinator.

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