Will Andy Dalton Follow Bill Lazor to Chicago Bears?
Prior to the trade deadline of the 2019 NFL season, there were rumors swirling of the Chicago Bears pulling the trigger and making a move to acquire quarterback Andy Dalton from the Cincinnati Bengals. This speculated maneuver was due to the disappointing play of Mitchell Trubisky.
Obviously, the trade did not happen, and Dalton remained in Cincy for the remainder of the season.
Fast forward to the Bears’ 2020 offseason. Chicago fired offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, and a number of offensive coaches on the staff. On Monday, the Bears hired Bill Lazor as their new offensive coordinator, according to NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport.
Bill Lazor has previously served as offensive coordinator for the #Dolphins and #Bengals and did a nice job. This year, he expanded his resume as a volunteer consultant for Penn State. Now, the #Bears. https://t.co/RyUNeeIv7j
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 13, 2020
Lazor, who has 15 years of experience as a coach in the NFL, was out of the league in 2019. However, he was the quarterbacks coach for the Bengals in 2016, and then held the position of offensive coordinator from 2017-18.
With this hiring, the possibility of general manager Ryan Pace and the rest of the Bears’ brass making a trade for Dalton has come back to life. As mentioned earlier, Trubisky struggled last season, and has not come close to living up to the billing of being the second-overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft. Entering his fourth year, Trubisky should be more-so concerned about being granted the fifth-year option on his rookie contract rather than getting a big contract extension.
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In order to get either one of those, a fire has to be lit under the North Carolina product, and what better way to do so than to bring in some stiff competition. We all know that Chase Daniel and Tyler Bray did not put any sense of urgency in the heart and mind of Trubisky. Maybe bringing in a seasoned veteran quarterback who is highly familiar with Lazor could be the thing that brings out the best in Trubisky.
What makes this trade possibility even more likely is how the Bengals treated Dalton in 2019. After starting the season 0-8, Cincinnati benched the nine-year veteran, only to bring him back to the starting lineup after three more losses. Furthermore, the Bengals had the worst record in the NFL in 2019 (2-14) and will have the first-overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. More than likely, Cincy will select the 2019 Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Joe Burrow out of LSU.
Of course, all of this is just speculation for right now, and only time will tell whether this will become a reality. In the event that this does come to life, the presence of Dalton will definitely catapult the biggest training camp competition for the Bears, and could be the biggest competition throughout the entire league this summer.
So Bear Nation, what do you think of the idea of Andy Dalton coming to the Windy City?