Comprising a Coaching Short List

The Bears could find a potential dark horse from the Sean McVay coaching tree that has produced successful head coaches twice already.

Potential Bears coaching candidates surface hourly on speculative talk radio and in print.

As the schedule ticked down to two remaining games with a 25-24 Bears win Sunday several more potentials seemed possible either for Chicago or for the other teams looking for coaches.

One in particular needs to be on any short list if the Bears even have the chance to get serious about one before both Jacksonville and Las Vegas have sorted through candidates ahead of them. 

Those two teams will have a head start on the slow-poke Bears in this coach hiring process because you first need to fire a coach before the hiring can actually occur.

Performances by the New Orleans Saints defense and the Indianapolis Colts defense within the last few weeks called attention to two potential candidates, even if they are on a side of the ball where most would not prefer hiring a coach.

Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen and Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus are stating real cases for themselves.

Allen served as head coach for the Raiders at a time when they usually fired one coach a year, and he still lasted 32 games. What he did against the Buccaneers offense as acting head coach while Sean Payton was trying to get over COVID-19 last week was remarkable, but typical of how his defenses have played over the years. Maybe getting under Tom Brady's skin was his biggest accomplishment, as Brady was caught on video cursing at him.

Eberflus completely stymied the Cardinals and has had a defense specializing in turnovers with the Colts. It's been often repeated by the Bears that turnovers are unpredictable from year to year and come in bunches. They are said to be more random and not necessarily tied to overall defensive performance. Eberflus' defenses have proven this is all rubbish. They take the ball and keep taking it.

The other candidate who needs to be considered along with the obvious trio everyone will want to discuss—New England's Josh McDaniels, former Philadelphia coach Doug Pederson and Tampa Bay's Todd Bowles—is a cutting-edge type whose resume may not impress at first glance. However, this past weekend he became greatly elevated both by what he has done as well as what others have done.

Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell needs to be given an interview even though he has not been his team's play caller.  He is the latest one on Sean McVay's Rams coaching tree.

Matt LaFleur's Packers have to be favorites to win the Super Bowl now. LaFleur is an offensive coach who got experience under McVay.

Another one from the same tree is really turning heads at the moment, and that's Zac Taylor with Cincinnati. They manhandled their longtime antagonists, the Baltimore Ravens, and Taylor has completely flipped the Bengals after years when they had to be considered right there with the Jets and Jacksonville as doormats of the AFC.

The McVay coaching tree is hot. O'Connell is the hot up-and-coming McVay disciple.

If the Bears do not look to the two most obvious choices staring them right in the face in McDaniels and Pederson, and then insist on avoiding a defensive-side hire where Bowles, Allen and Eberflus look like good choices, then O'Connell is one of those cutting-edge coaching candidates types they actually need to scrutinize.

Here's why:

1. The McVay Offense

O'Connell would bring experience with McVay's offense, using motion so well that it keeps even top defenses on their heels. The Bears' own defense has been bowled over by this offense each of the last three seasons, including this year in the opener when they were just about entirely healthy.

2. Play-Calling Overrated

Nagy was supposed to be offensive genius and couldn't call plays well. Like O'Connell, neither LaFleur nor Taylor had play-calling experience under McVay. They went elsewhere to do it, LaFleur to Tennessee before the Packers hired him. Taylor got his experience the hard way. He had two years of tough losses in Cincinnati while the front office tried to weed out the refuse left from the previous staff. Then this year he succeeded. If they've been successful coordinating the offense, they can pick up the play-calling aspect. It's the design they bring and ability to understand how it works and convey this that are important.

3. McVay's Stamp

This is the most critical one. O'Connell was sought by former Bears assistant Brandon Staley as offensive coordinator with the Chargers this year after both had only one year on McVay's staff, but McVay blocked the move. He could do it because it was only a lateral move and not a promotion from offensive coordinator to head coach. Of course, with the Chargers O'Connell would have been calling plays but the league doesn't differentiate between offensive coordinators calling plays and not calling them when it allows teams to block interviews. If O'Connell was good enough at his job to be blocked by McVay from interviewing after only a year with the Rams, then his importance and talent is obvious.

4. Experience

He's only 36 years old but has plenty of NFL experience, having been an offensive coordinator briefly in Washington during the end of the Jay Gruden era. Unlike many coaching candidates, O'Connell is a former NFL player, though an unsuccessful one. He was thought to be another potential replacement for Brady as the third-round pick by the Patriots out of San Diego State in 2008. He kicked around the league with half a dozen teams on the periphery of rosters then became quarterbacks coach immediately upon entering the NFL as an assistant in 2015 with Cleveland under Mike Pettine. He was in San Francisco for a year before going to Washington and then the Rams.

At the very least, O'Connell has to be considered a dark horse on the offensive side of the ball when the Bears finally do begin searching for a coach. That is, unless either the Raiders or Jaguars have already hired him by the time the Bears get around to firing Nagy and interviewing candidates.

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