Chris Tabor
Special teams coordinator Age: 47
Resume: Browns special teams coordinator, 2011-17; Bears assistant special teams coach, 2008-10; Western Michigan RBs/special teams coach, 2006-07; Utah State RBs/special teams coach, 2005; Utah State WRs coach, 2002-2004; Culver-Stockton (NAIA) head coach, 2001; Missouri RBs/special teams coach, 2000.
Why he’s here
No one associated with the Browns this decade boasts a more impressive achievement than Tabor.
The Bears’ former assistant special teams coach was hired away by Pat Shurmur to run the Browns’ special teams in 2011. Two years later, when Shurmur was fired, new head coach Rob Chudzinski kept Tabor in the same role. A year later, another new Browns head coach, Mike Pettine, did the same. When the Browns hired yet another new head coach in 2016, Hue Jackson decided he wanted Tabor to stay. He did.
When Tabor decided to leave the Browns in January — after tenures with an astonishing four different head coaches, a rarity in the itinerant NFL — it was of his own volition. It was easily explainable, too. The Browns had won one game in two years. Tabor connected to new head coach Matt Nagy through special teams guru Dave Toub, his old Bears boss who befriended Nagy when both were Chiefs staffers the past five years.
And then there was the lure of the league’s founding franchise.
“It’s the Bears,” Tabor said. “I mean, I don’t know if you need to say more . . . . It’s a great fan base. It’s a city that’s a great sports town that loves all their sports. You could be a Sox fan or you could be a Cubs fan, but you’re a Bears fan.
“I think that’s exciting. It’s fun when you go to a place where football’s important and people are passionate about it.”
From 2008-10, Tabor served as Toub’s deputy during one of the great special teams runs in NFL history. During those three seasons, the Bears led the NFL with 6,570 total return yards and ranked second with six return touchdowns. They allowed only one special teams score.
The Bears would be thrilled with anything approaching those numbers in 2018.
As a rookie, Tarik Cohen ranked 10th in the NFL with a 22.4-yard kick-return average and ninth with a 9.4-yard punt-return average. His 61-yard punt-return touchdown was perhaps the Bears’ most memorable play of 2017 — he ran 15 yards backward after catching the ball — but he wasn’t far from a few more. Cohen had a 90-yard kickoff return and a 67-yard punt return called back because of penalties.