Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out: Chuck Pagano, Eddie Jackson Waster

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: January 14, 2021

Chuck Pagano has decided to retire after 36 years in coaching, the last two of which were spent as the Bears’ defensive coordinator.

I mean, uh, congratulations on your retirement. Your family must be thrilled.

Anyway, your author clearly applauds the move, as seen by the above video and the fact that his Twitter display name at the time this post was written was “Fire Chuck Pagano.” Pagano was hired by the Bears to take over after Vic Fangio left to take the head coaching job in Denver. Pagano inherited the best defense by DVOA the NFL had seen since the 2012 Bears, which, think of the ground that encompasses – that 2018 squad bested both the Legion of Boom and the Broncos’ 2015 unit that carried Peyton Manning to a second ring. The next two years, the Bears would finish 10th and 8th, respectively, in DVOA. While those finishes aren’t bad in a vacuum, and while there was always going to be some regression after a historically great year like 2018, the amount of regression is nuts given that Roquan Smith, Eddie Jackson, and Bilal Nichols are now two years further along in their careers and Jaylon Johnson is an upgrade over Prince Amukamara, developments that more than make up for the downgrade of Bryce Callahan to Buster Skrine.

The really galling part about Pagano’s tenure was his scheme itself. I truly thought Pagano’s scheme would work after watching tape of the 2011 Ravens. What he brought here seemed to lack a real identity, though. It wasn’t as aggressive as what he ran in Baltimore, in part, I assume, because he knew the offense couldn’t afford for the defense to give up big mistakes. It also wasn’t the heavy zone scheme that Fangio ran so successfully. What resulted was a bland bunch of soft man and softer zone, apparently designed to give up what seemed like a gorillion third down conversions. Also part of that scheme, Eddie Jackson spending large chunks of time near the line of scrimmage, because…reasons! Reasons that apparently inspired him to do the same thing with Ed Reed in Baltimore. So number 1 on my DC wish list is somebody who’s not going to do that. Dan Quinn was at the top of my list, but Dallas beat us to the punch. Over the next few days, your author will go over a few potential replacements that are still out there. Before anyone tweets me about this, remember that 4-3 vs. 3-4 is not nearly as important as one-gap vs. two-gap. Vic Fangio’s system, while nominally a 3-4, was a one-gap system. It would not be hard for the Bears to run a 4-3 should a candidate emerge who espouses such an arrangement.

Twitter: @KSchroeder_312