New Bears offensive coordinator Chris Beatty has quite a bit of experience with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, going all the way back to trying to recruit him when he was at University of Maryland.
Now he’s got him, but it’s in a challenging scenario as the Bears try to regroup following the tumult that led to the firing of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and coach Matt Eberflus in past three weeks.
“This is hard for all of us — those guys are great coaches and great people,” Beatty said Thursday. “The football part is where you get away from the human part of it. We try to make the main thing the main thing and not worry about the fluff. We’re not going to worry about things looking this way or that way to anybody else. We’ll get the football part right, and everything else will take care of itself.”
Beatty plans to coach from the sideline, and quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph will remain the primary coach working with Williams on the bench during games.
Beatty is now the Bears’ third offensive coordinator this season, following Waldron (nine games) and Brown (three).
He was a college coordinator or co-coordinator at Hampton (2006), Illinois (2012) and Maryland (2018). As a position coach, he has worked with wide receivers, running backs, quarterbacks.