After the Bears got rocked by New Orleans two Sundays ago, Matt Nagy told reporters that if the team made a change at play-caller, no one would ever know about it. How mysterious! Somewhere, Bill Belichick nods approvingly. Explicitly telling reporters that it's a secret they'll never figure out is absolutely the way to get them to drop it. The questions about Nagy's role in the play-calling probably weren't going away, but a handful of mishaps at the end of the first and second half of Sunday's loss certainly didn't help.
Since you've already spent the last three weeks talking with your work friends about the best backups and 2020 QB prospects (Joe Burrow could be had!), the next step of Takery is obviously the play-calling. Are the Bears going to make a change? Probably not! But since when has that stopped us from talking about it? Here are the names to toss around in those conversations:
Brad Childress
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Did you know that Brad Childress works for the Bears? I only know that because like eight months ago I quite literally ran into him at Halas Hall and thought to myself, huh, Brad Childress works for the Bears. He's listed on the team website as a senior offensive assistant, so who knows what he does. It's his first year on staff in Chicago, but he goes back with Nagy to their days in Kansas City. He also carried Brandon Weeden to the best season (3,385 yards) of his career so, you know, it can be done. He's plenty familiar with the NFC North too, having been the Vikings' head coach from 2006-2010.
Would someone who schemes like Nagy (and had the same clock-management rep as Nagy's earning) be any different? Who knows. Also is it maybe time to wonder why the Andy Reid coaching tree struggles so much with the clock?
Mark Helfrich
This seems to be the odds-on favorite, just because OC's are generally next in line anyways. He cut his teeth all over the Pac-12, and was a key figure behind the scenes in those great Chip Kelly-Marcus Mariota (and Jeremiah Masoli!) seasons at Oregon. Helfrich's – and Ryan Pace's – connection to Mariota, who's realistically going to spend the offseason looking for a new team, is made for talk radio. His time in Eugene didn't end particularly well, and the Bears' offense hasn't exactly lit things up since he came to the Bears in January 2018. His inexperience at the NFL level probably sets him back a bit, but if you're making an in-season change, it's already a shot in the dark.
NFL
Dave Ragone
People forget that Ragone was quietly linked to the Titans offensive coordinator opening this past offseason. And yeah, maybe some of that was posturing, but he's well-regarded inside Halas Hall and reportedly on several teams' radars. He was on a Washington team (with Sean McVay!!!) that coached Kirk Cousins to the fifth-best passer rating in the NFL (101.6). He's the bridge between Nagy and Mitch Trubisky, not to mention probably the QB's closest confidant on staff. Maybe the Bears give him the reigns with the hopes that it buys them some good faith when other teams come calling? This whole post is speculatory, so we'll leave it on the most dramatic example of it.
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