Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy watches the team warm up during a three-day voluntary minicamp on April 20, 2022. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times, Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Bears quarterback Justin Fields has a lot to learn between now and the start of training camp. He needs to master Luke Getsy’s playbook before his teammates put on pads and, in the new offensive coordinator’s words, “real ball starts.”
Getsy, though, doesn’t want to set a limit on what Fields can learn between now and then. Nor does he want to take the long view of Fields’ development during organized team activities and mandatory minicamp the next five weeks.
“We’re working through this thing step-by-step … ” Getsy said Sunday at the end of the Bears’ rookie minicamp. “In order to be able to master our craft we have to master each step. So we’re just, we’re staying on track.
“I think he’s, if anything, ahead of pace. And I’m real excited to see, by the end of this thing, if we’re just going to keep knocking out these steps. That’s all.”
How far up the staircase are they?
Getsy laughed.
“We’re climbing, we’re climbing, we’re climbing,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”
The faster Fields can climb, the better — both for the second-year quarterback and his first-year offensive coordinator.
“I’ve been super impressed with him, I really have,” Getsy said. “There’s no one in this building that works harder than him. There’s no one that cares more than him.
“We’re off to a great start. He’s really accepted this challenge. We’re asking a lot of him — to learn a lot of new things. He’s been a pleasure to work with.”
With head coach Matt Eberflus coming from a defensive background, Getsy is the Bears’ top offensive mind. A longtime admirer of the Packers’ scheme, Eberflus knew he wanted to work with Getsy, their passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach, before he got the Bears job in January.
Together, Getsy and Fields will be the latest duo to try to figure out one of the most elusive questions in the NFL — how the Bears franchise can develop a modern passing offense. In 103 seasons, the Bears have never had a passer throw for more than 4,000 yards. The Texans, by contrast, have done it five times in their 21 seasons of existence.
Matt Nagy’s offense yielded the third-fewest passing yards in the NFL last year, an average of 188.6 per game. In Nagy’s first three years as head coach, the Bears never finished above the bottom 12 in passing yards.
If he can get Fields rolling in a way Nagy never could, Getsy would set a promising career path for both himself and his quarterback. They’re going to have to do it together.
“I was raised on that — that the play-caller and the quarterback have to have a great relationship, and that’s important,” Getsy said. “We have to be on the same page, always.”
That started when Getsy began installing his offense, a mix of outside zone and read option runs with a vertical passing attack. Getsy has been showing film from as far back as 2010 to teach the scheme. He was artfully dodged a question of how many of the cut-ups come from the hated Packers, for whom Getsy worked over two different stints.
Fields, he said, has grown more comfortable with Getsy during the installation. The coordinator sees that as a good start.
“That’s where I’ve felt like he’s grown, is he’s communicating with me so well now, things that he’s feeling, things that he sees,” Getsy said. “And so that part of it has just been tremendous, for a young guy to be able to do that. These three or four months that we’ve been together, it’s been a lot of fun.”
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