Ranking the Chicago Bears head coaching candidates being interviewed

Chicago Bears Coaching Candidate: Nathaniel Hackett, OC – Green Bay Packers

We can finally move to the offensive side of the football. This is what scares me about the Chicago Bears’ current head coach search. I find that they are looking into too many defensive-minded head coaches and it makes me very scared to hear that they decided to hire Leslie Frazier as the next head coach. Yuck. Please, for the life of me, no! Can you tell I have a disdain for Frazier yet?

The Chicago Bears are interviewing the Packers’ current offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett. The problem with Hackett is that he is working under a coach who I always thought could cut it as a head coach in Matt LaFleur. In 2018, I had LaFleur ranked in the top three of my head coaching candidate rankings. The team decided to hire Matt Nagy instead and here we are. That said, both LaFleur and Nathaniel Hackett benefit from the fact they have future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

This is where the struggle comes with coaching candidates like Hackett. How much can we attribute to an offensive coordinator who runs an offense like the Packers? How much of the success is directly linked to Hackett versus LaFleur and Rodgers. That’s hard to determine — especially in this situation. My gut tells me that Hackett can’t “hack it”.

As the offensive Coordinator of the Bills in 2013 and 2014, his offenses were 19th and 26th in yards, while 22nd and 18th in points. In his defense, EJ Manuel and Kyle Orton were his starting quarterbacks. Hackett was the OC in Jacksonville from 2016 to 2018. He had one good year (2017) when the team finished sixth in yards and fifth in points. The team was ranked in the 20s his other two years. Of course, the Packers are top 10 in yards and points the last two seasons, but again, is this due to Rodgers more than Hackett? I’d say yes.