After missing the postseason in 2019, the Chicago Bears are laser-focused on returning to the dance under new leadership on offense.
Chicago is hiring former Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Bill Lazor as their next OC, sources told NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport on Monday.
Lazor will replace ex-Bears offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, who was fired along with a slew of offensive assistants two days after the end of Chicago's 8-8 2019 campaign.
Lazor, 47, spent the 2019 season out of professional football after he was fired from his post as Bengals OC after nearly two seasons; Rapoport reported he was a volunteer consultant at Penn State. Lazor took over for fired Bengals OC Ken Zampese near the start of the 2017 campaign and oversaw injury-riddled seasons in which Cincinnati failed to finished higher than 26th in yards per game and 17th in points per game.
This will be Lazor's third offensive coordinator gig in the NFL; he was the Miami Dolphins OC under Joe Philbin and Dan Campbell in 2014 and 2015.
In Chicago, Lazor will be tasked, alongside Bears coach Matt Nagy, with fixing an offense that regressed with Mitchell Trubisky under center in 2019; the Bears ranked 29th in both points and yards per game. It's unclear whether Nagy will relinquish play-calling duties, which he did not do with Helfrich by his side in 2018 and 2019.
Trubisky's improvement will go a long toward determing whether the Bears can stay competitive in the NFC North and the conference. The responsibility of sparking that great change will fall on the shoulders of Lazor, who can count Jason Campbell, Matt Hasselbeck, Nick Foles, Ryan Tannehill and Andy Dalton as his previous partners in quarterbacking.