The Chicago Bears were the breakouts of the 2018 NFL season. Matt Nagy surpassed all expectations in his first year as a head coach, and led his team to a division title. If it weren't for Cody Parkey's double-doink, they would've won a playoff game.
But now they'll have higher expectations heading into 2019, and they'll have to play a tougher schedule as a result of their first place finish. They've undergone some serious changes this offseason, perhaps none bigger than the departure of defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
Chicago hired former Colts coach Chuck Pagano to replace him, and there's been some worrying that there could be a drop-off as everybody adjusts to a new system. Don't count Nagy among those worried.
“I have zero concerns,” Nagy said after a recent Bears practice, per Jeff Dickerson of ESPN.com. “It’s going to be exciting. We are seeing some different looks out there that we haven’t seen with Vic. It’s been neat.”
While Nagy is of course expressing confidence publicly, it'll be a tough task for Pagano. He's taking over a defense that was the league's best unit last year, so there's nowhere to go but down. The Bears also lost some key pieces of the defense in free agency, like starting safety Adrian Amos and starting cornerback Bryce Callahan.
Pagano knows how much success Fangio had, and insisted he's not going to change too much.
“It would be foolish on my part not to have some carryover considering what they’ve done,” Pagano after practice Wednesday. “Vic and I were together at one point in Baltimore, so there’s some common threads that run through both systems, and that’s a good thing for these guys and myself.”
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