Chicago Bears safeties coach named young NFL rising star

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Do the Bears have another Coach of the Year candidate waiting in the wings? The Athletic released a “40 under 40” list of “rising stars shaping the direction of the NFL,” and Bears’ safeties coach Sean Desai made the cut.

Here’s what The Athletic had to say about the 37-year-old position coach:

“Desai is entering his eighth NFL season and second as a position coach, leading the Bears’ safeties. He was the youngest coordinator in college football in 2010 when he ran special teams at Temple. He’s one of the only Indian-American coaches in the NFL and also has a master’s degree as well as a Ph.D. in educational administration, giving him a unique profile for a coach in the NFL. Desai was Vic Fangio’s right-hand man in the coaching booth as a quality control coach from 2015-18 and is the longest-tenured assistant on the Bears’ staff.”

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We all know how dominant Fangio’s Bears defenses were, so it’s worth noting The Athletic labeled Desai as Fangio’s “right-hand man.”

An even better indication for the team’s faith in Desai was his promotion to safeties coach in 2019. When you’ve got a young first-team All Pro ball hawk like Eddie Jackson, you obviously want to give him the best tutelage you can. Trusting Desai for the job certainly appears like a vote of confidence for him.

So could Desai be the next young head coaching phenom? It’s not out of the question.

Of the five new head coaches in 2020, two are younger than 40, Joe Judge and Kevin Stefanski. In 2019, four of the eight new head coaching hires were under 40: Zac Taylor, Matt LaFleur, Kliff Kingsbury and Brian Flores. In Flores’ case he even went straight to a head coaching job from a position coach job.

Either way, Desai is starting to make waves in the national spotlight.

RELATED: 2020 Bears training camp: Do Bears have (and need) NFL’s best defense?

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