Meet New Bears Offensive Coordinator, Bill Lazor
The Chicago Bears hired Bill Lazor to be the new team’s offensive coordinator, following the firing of Mark Helfrich.
Helfrich and former OL coach Harry Heistand (both have been fired) were in charge of coordinating the Bears run game this past season. The run game was underwhelming, to say the least, so Nagy and company are hoping new offensive line coach Juan Castillo and recent OC hire Bill Lazor can change that.
Bill Lazor, 47, was the offensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins from 2014-2015 and the Cincinnati Bengals from 2017-2018. Lazor did not coach in 2019 but did coach for 24 straight seasons before last year.
With the Bengals, Lazor led them to the 17th overall offense in the league with Andy Dalton under center. Considering Nagy will still be designing the plays and retaining play-calling duties, Lazor will have the same responsibilities that Helfrich had.
As the OC, Lazor ran a west-coast style offense with both the Dolphins and Bengals, which should complement Matt Nagy’s pass-first oriented offense well.
With the Bengals in 2018, Lazor’s offense finished 19th in passing yards, 25th in rushing yards, 26th in total yards, and 30th in points.
Former OC Mark Helfrich was responsible for coordinating the team’s run game. That was one of the worst offensive aspects of the team so hopefully, Lazor can work with new offensive line coach Juan Castillo to fix what was a major problem last season. Lazor also ran some really intricate RPO concepts with Andy Dalton in Cincinnati. With a more athletic quarterback in Mitch Trubisky, perhaps Lazor can get the quarterback using his legs more, which could catapult the ground game.
Given the circumstances that the Bears are in — having a head coach who is running his own offense and calling plays — this is the best hire they could make. Most coaches are not going to take an offensive coordinator position where they won’t be able to call plays or install their offense. Lazor took the position because he was out of football. As an offensive coordinator, Lazor has coached an average offense in the NFL and the Bears had a below-average offense last year.
Hopefully, he can come in and bring some new ideas that will help the Bears offense produce more, especially in the run game.
With Nagy running the show on offense, there is only so much this new OC will do in a limited role.
Featured Image: Kareem Elgazzar/Cincinnati.com
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