Ben Johnson hired two coordinators before the end of his first week with the Bears and decided to keep a third.
Former Raiders and Saints head coach Dennis Allen will be the Bears’ defensive coordinator, while Declan Doyle will serve as offensive coordinator, sources said Sunday night. Special teams coordinator Richard Hightower will return in the same role.
Doyle, 28, was the Broncos’ tight end coach. Johnson will call plays. Doyle was an offensive assistant for the Saints from 2019-22 before spending the last two years in Denver.
Allen, 52, brings head coaching experience to the staff of a first-time head coach. Allen was the Raiders’ head coach from 2012-14 and the Saints head coach from 2022 until midway through last season. He was the Broncos’ defensive coordinator in 2011 and Sean Payton’s defensive coordinator in New Orleans from 2015-21 before replacing him. Allen improved the Saints’ defense from last in points allowed in 2015 to fourth in 2021.
Allen has been linked to Johnson since his hiring. The two had never met, Johnson said, but Allen had connections to Lions head coach Dan Campbell in New Orleans. Doyle worked with Campbell there, too.
“We faced [Allen’s] defense when he was in New Orleans, and I gained a lot of respect for it,” Johnson said Wednesday. “Everywhere he has been, they have been a top third-down team, a top red-zone team, so there are a lot of pillars about what he does schematically that would be appealing to me.”
General manager Ryan Poles said earlier this month that if he hired a first-time head coach, he wanted them to add experienced cooridantors.
“What do the coordinators look like? Are they former head coaches?” he said. “Do you have an advisor that’s a head coach that’s at your right side to pick up some of your blind spots to say, ‘Hey you might want to take care of this. This can turn into something later.’ Or, ‘I think you might be missing something here.’ So how are you supporting some of those blind spots if you are a first- time coach.”
Hightower was the special teams coordinator for all three of Matt Eberflus’ seasons. In this year’s finale, he called a trick punt return that produced a 94-yard Josh Blackwell touchdown. He was one of three Bears to win NFC Special Teams Player of the Week.