LAKE FOREST – Luke Getsy might be the biggest unknown for the 2022 Bears. He might also be the key to making sure the season is a roaring success no matter the record.
In January, the Bears hired Getsy as their offensive coordinator after he spent three seasons in Green Bay as the QB coach and passing-game coordinator for the Packers. At this point, we know relatively little about his scheme and how it will utilize the strengths of second-year quarterback Justin Fields.
However, what is becoming clear about Getsy is that he has a way about him. People are drawn to him and have faith in his abilities as a coach, play-caller, and offensive maestro.
“Unshakeable,” offensive lineman Lucas Patrick, who spent the last five seasons in Green Bay, said Tuesday of his belief in Getsy.
After spending five years competing for Super Bowls alongside Aaron Rodgers, Patrick traveled south to Chicago to join the Bears, largely because of Getsy.
“Every time I’ve seen him work with players, I’ve seen the progress,” Patrick said. “In the wide receiver room he started with in Green Bay, I mean, a bunch of studs that he made better. He went into that QB room, and I’m pretty sure [Rodgers] won an MVP. Now he’s coming to be our OC. I mean, everything he does well, and he’s like a really good person, and it’s really easy to go and run through a brick wall for a coach that you believe in.”
That’s the bet Eberflus made when he hired Getsy. If he can help Rodgers get better, he can help mold Fields into one of the next great quarterbacks.
Patrick wasn’t the only one Getsy brought to Chicago. Quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko has known Getsy for a decade dating back to his college days as a third-string quarterback at the University of Pittsburgh.
“He’s the same guy as he is today,” Janocko said Tuesday. “He’s a heck of a leader. He’s really smart. He’s a good person, somebody that you’re drawn to. Some people draw to Luke because he cares about the people around him, and he has a whole bunch of knowledge. He’s been to a bunch of different places around great people, so that’s who you want to surround yourself with. “
Getsy and Janocko have the monumental task of making sure second-year quarterback Justin Fields becomes the star the Bears envisioned when they drafted him at No. 11 overall in 2021.
Both have been highly complimentary of Fields’ work ethic and talent, and the belief is that the second-year QB is learning the new offense ahead of schedule.
“I think he has really gone to work mentally in the classroom, away from the classroom, what he is doing with his iPad at night, how he studies, how he is ready and prepared the next day, how he comes and approaches every day,” Janocko said of Fields. “When he comes in ready to work, you hear the stories on some of the great guys when they come into the building, they’re ready to go. They’re prepared mentally. They’re prepared with what they did the night before, and then they’re prepared to come in. This is what they do, and this is what they want to be great at, so that’s what you see from him.”
The start of the Matt Eberflus-Ryan Poles rebuild will hinge on Getsy and his work with Fields. After all, the Bears did little to support Fields this offseason. They signed a handful of bodies at wide receiver and added Patrick to play center. Otherwise, there wasn’t much else that arrived this offseason to help the second-year QB.
Other than Getsy.
The Bears’ offensive coordinator and his scheme are the support. He and Fields will succeed and fail together.
As they go, so go the 2022 Bears.
The stakes are high for a first-time play-caller. But the faith in Getsy’s ability might be even higher at Halas Hall.
That faith paints a picture of a coach who has poured himself into the job and elevated his players in the process. The Bears are betting on Getsy doing the same for Fields.
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