Bear Digest

Bears ignore the Luke Getsy experience with latest interview additions

Analysis: Trying to a Packers coach already failed for the Bears once and now they're looking at a former Packers coach and their current offensive coordinator.

Gene Chamberlain

Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich works with the team's linemen, something he's been very good at doing.
Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich works with the team's linemen, something he's been very good at doing. / Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK
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Apparently unfazed by the Luke Getsy experience, the Bears are interested in talking to more coaching candidates who've been associated with the team that owns them—or at least did until the last game of the regular season.

They requested an interview with Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich, according to a Tom Pelissero report. And also former Packers and Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy will interview with the Bears Wednesday, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News. 

Of course, the 61-year-old McCarthy is well known as Jerry Jones' coach for the past five years after his 13-year stint as Packers coach spanning the Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers eras.

It's Stenavich who is the question mark.

A Complete Unknown

Most people south of the Kenosha Mars Cheese Castle probably didn't even realize coach Matt LaFleur had an offensive coordinator.

Since Stenavich has been with the Packers, he made an impact. So did Getsy as a Packers assistant and he flopped as Bears offensive coordinator.

Stenavich worked five years as a college line coach at Michigan, Northern Arizona and San Jose State before getting a two-year look with the 49ers as an assistant offensive line coach under Kyle Shanahan. Then he went to the Packers and has been there since then as offensive line coach until 2022. That's when Nathaniel Hackett left and Stenavich got promoted to OC.

Measuring how much is his work and how much is the work of Matt LaFleur/Aaron Rodgers/Jordan Love over the years is difficult to ascertain because Stenavich doesn't call plays and LaFleur does.

The Packers have had good blocking under Stenavich, but there's little evidence he can do more than coach the offensive line and help organize the game plan during a week the way he has been as the offensive coordinator.

The Packers have been out of the top half of the NFL in rushing only once since Stenavich was there as either line coach or offensive coordinator. That was in 2021 when they were 18th. They finished fifth in rushing last year with Josh Jacobs as the main ball carrier, their highest ranking under Stenavich. Three times in the six years they were in the top 10 in yards per carry, including six last year.

Of course, run blocking isn't all offensive linemen do and the Packers have been very effective as pass blockers and at melding the run and pass so that the pressure is off their blockers when they do block for the pass.

The Packers allowed only 22 sacks last season, second-lowest total. They gave up 30 in 2023, the third-lowest total.

Stenavich as a head coach would be a real unknown. He might be the type of coach who could retain Thomas Brown as an offensive coordinator to call plays because he has never called them himself during the regular season.

The running game would return with Stenavich as a Bears head coach, or at least there would be an emphasis on it.

Pass First

With McCarthy, it might be quite the opposite. Green Bay finished top 10 in passing during his first nine years and his teams have been in 14 of his 18 seasons as a head coach. There hasn't been the same emphasis on running as the only team he had in 18 that finished in the top 10 for rushing attempts was in 2022 with the Cowboys.

McCarthy and Rodgers always seemed at odds, something that started with the 2005 draft when McCarthy was 49ers offensive coordinator and wanted the Niners to take Alex Smith instead of Rodgers.

In a famed 2019 Bleacher Report article, Rodgers said McCarthy had a "low football IQ." You don't get a 174-112-2 record (.608) with 12 playoff appearances, a Lombardi Trophy and an 11-11 postseason record with a low football IQ.

Whatever is the case, the Bears have never had much success facing the teams for both coaches. McCarthy is 19-7 against the Bears as head coach and Stenavich's Packers teams are 11-1 against them.

The worst part of Dallas making McCarthy available for the Bears to interview might eventually mean George McCaskey has to outbid both Jerry Jones, as well as Tom Brady and the Raiders, for Ben Johnson.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.