The big trap the Chicago Bears could fall into when hiring an OC

Will the Chicago Bears look to another West Coast Offense in their new OC?

Here is the case for why I am, currently questioning whether Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus are up to the task of creating a Super Bowl winner for Chicago. BearGogglesOn put together an extensive list of OC candidates. 10 out of 11 of these candidates would run the West Coast Offense. The big problem with this is simple. In the last ten to twenty years or more, the majority of WCO play-callers run what I call the “coward’s version” of the WCO.

On top of that, these 10 potential Bears OCs are all young and inexperienced. These factors do not lend themselves to the next Bears play-caller making the gutsy calls when a gutsy call is exactly what is needed to win a big game. On top of that, these inexperienced WCO play callers that are candidates for the Bears will report to a head coach who has a defensive mentality.

History clearly shows that the vast majority of head coaches from the defensive side of the ball are more focused on controlling turnovers than making chunk plays. This is very likely why so many head coaches from defense prefer the WCO which often calls for an abundance of short passes that theoretically can become chunk plays with a broken tackle or a juke move by a receiver.

The modern West Coast Offense very often has devolved into a risk-averse offense that without a franchise quarterback does not deliver a team a Super Bowl. In the last 10 years, four teams won Super Bowls that used the WCO. Those teams’ quarterbacks were Peyton Manning, Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson and Nick Foles. This would indicate that the WCO works if you have a franchise quarterback.

In 2018, when Foles took over as the Eagles QB he played like a franchise QB during their Super Bowl run. I also contend that if you take Patrick Mahomes out of the Chiefs’ equation, Andy Reid and his WCO never win a Super Bowl be it in 2020 or the future. Andy Reid is a classic example of a very smart WCO practitioner who failed for many many years because he took the risk-averse approach in way too many clutch moments.