On one hand, the Chicago Bears hired an inexperienced offensive coordinator when they brought Luke Getsy over from being the Green Bay Packers quarterbacks coach. He called plays at IUP, a Division II school, and for one year at Mississippi State.
On the flip side, a young, up-and-coming play-caller who is a former quarterback is exactly what you want to build around. With Matt Eberflus leading the defense you can expect the young offensive mind to have full control of his offense, and bring in new concepts to the NFL.
While we have a small sample of his play-calling ability, we can get an idea of what type of things he will bring and why they may be helping Justin Fields.
Chicago Bears will run more RPOs
In the one year that Getsy called plays in the SEC, they ran an RPO 15% of the time, according to Sports Info Solutions. That may be high compared to NFL standards, but in 2021 Justin Fields only ran an RPO on 4% of their passes.
Fields ran RPOs often at Ohio State, and the Bears weirdly were more trusting to run an RPO-based offense with Andy Dalton than Justin Fields. When Luke Getsy comes in, he will not build the offense around the RPO, but it will be a clear part of the offense, and it is expected to impact the running game as well.
Designed runs for quarterbacks
At times, the run part of the run-pass option can be a quarterback run. Justin Fields had plenty of rushing attempts, and was is the top ten all-time in rushing yards by a rookie quarterback, However, Matt Nagy was not comfortable transitioning the offense from Dalton to Fields, and almost all of the rushing attempts Fields had have been scrambles, and not designed attempts.
Last year, the Bears had a designed run called for Fields on 22% of his rushing attempts, with 78% of his rushes being scrambles. Some of that can be on Fields for taking off too much, but one thing Getsy will do is use the mobility of his quarterback.
When Nick Fitzgerald was his quarterback at Mississippi State he led MSU in rushing, and that was a team with NFL rusher Kylin Hill. The Bears will not run their quarterback this much, but it is worth noting that this was not their quarterback scrambling. 73% of his rushing attempts were designed. Some were RPOs, some were draws, some were options. No matter what, he got his quarterback involved in the ground game.
This helped get the run game going for the others. When Justin Fields holds the ball he freezes linebackers, and it gives David Montgomery a head start to attack downhill.
The fact that 73% of Getsy quarterback attempts were designed when he called plays and 22% were called that way for Fields tells you that Getsy knows what type of his quarterback he is working with while Matt Nagy did not.
We will find out how Getsy is going to grow as the season starts, but on paper, what he called at Mississippi State matches up with the skill set of Justin Fields.