Bears to hire Childress as offensive consultant
Bears coach Matt Nagy is bringing his ‘‘ partner in crime’’ out of a very brief retirement.
Nagy will hire Brad Childress as an offensive consultant, sources confirmed Monday. Childress and Nagy coached together with the Chiefs from 2013 to 2017 and are close friends. In his introductory news conference last month, Nagy called Childress his ‘‘ partner in crime.’’
‘‘ Every day he was telling stories and being there for me, being there with me,’’ Nagy said last month. ‘‘ He has a special place in my heart, and I just thank him from the bottom of my heart.’’
In a staff shake- up last week, the Chiefs announced that Childress, 61, planned on retiring. He was their assistant head coach under Andy Reid in 2017 after serving as Nagy’s co- offensive coordinator the season before.
In Childress’ first three seasons with the Chiefs, he analyzed the spread offense and worked on special projects.
An Aurora native who attended Marmion Academy and Eastern Illinois, Childress got his start coaching running backs and receivers at Illinois from1978 to 1984. He’s best- known for being the Vikings’ coach from 2006 to 2010. He went 39- 35 during that span, reaching the playoffs in 2008 and 2009. The Vikings lost the 2009 NFC Championship Game to the Saints.
With 19 years of NFL coaching experience, Childress will bring some much- needed seasoning to Nagy’s offensive staff. Nagy has called plays for less than a halfseason, and offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, a former coach at Oregon, never has worked in the NFL before.
Childress knows what he’ll be inheriting at quarterback. He and Nagy were part of the Chiefs’ brain trust that interviewed Mitch Trubisky at length — first at the NFL Scouting Combine, then privately at the team’s facility — before the draft last year.