Declan Doyle
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Declan Doyle's experience with Bo Nix may have played a role in Ben Johnson's interest in making Doyle the Chicago Bears' offensive coordinator
Although the hiring of Ben Johnson as head coach was met with universal acclaim by Chicago Bears fans and the NFL as a whole, the decision of Johnson, general manager Ryan Poles and the entire Bears organization to make then 28-year-old Declan Doyle the team’s offensive coordinator was greeted with some skepticism.
It’s not as if Declan Doyle is a controversial figure or has any experiences in his coaching past that send off alarm bells. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. Doyle was a relative unknown at the time of his hiring, but that comes with becoming the youngest offensive coordinator in the NFL. It’s not a mischaracterization, however, to say that the now 29-year-old Doyle is one of the most important coordinators in the NFL this season.
Last season, Declan Doyle was in Denver serving as the Broncos’ tight ends coach, but his job extended far beyond coaching up his position group. Doyle and the rest of the Denver Broncos coaching staff was on-boarding a rookie quarterback — 12th overall pick Bo Nix — who would be learning an entirely new system in the NFL. There was a learning curve that was expected to be deep, but surprisingly, Nix hit the ground running and was one of the standouts from a deep class of quarterbacks that included Caleb Williams.
Now as Ben Johnson and the Bears coaching staff is tasked with getting Caleb Williams up to speed with an entirely new offense, Johnson was wise to attach himself to a coordinator who has the experience of teaching a young quarterback a brand new and fairly complex offense.
“We taught Bo the overall system, and then we did a good job of shaping it to Bo and bringing things that maybe he had done at Oregon or things he had done in the past he was comfortable with,” Doyle explained, per Adam Jahns of CHGO. “It was very similar to how we handled Caleb. Give him everything and then as you figure out what they’re good at, let’s narrow it down and reshape it during the season.”
Bears Hope Caleb Williams Picks Up Where Bo Nix Left Off
It goes without saying that Caleb Williams and Bo Nix are drastically different quarterbacks, but just because these two former Pac-12 rivals operate differently, it doesn’t mean that Declan Doyle’s experience coaching one won’t be beneficial when it comes to coaching the other.
Nix was one of the biggest surprises in the NFL last season. Yes, he was multiple years older than some of the other quarterbacks in his draft class, but there still wasn’t necessarily a sense that he would grasp many of the nuances of professional football as quickly as he did. But in the end, Nix finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting behind Jayden Daniels and Brock Bowers, and he put forth one of the more successful first-year quarterback seasons we’ve seen in recent years.
Bo Nix, 2024 season – 10-7 record, 66.7% completion, 3,775 yards, 29 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, 93.3 passer rating, 430 rushing yards, 4 rushing touchdowns
If Caleb Williams were to reach those statistical markers this season — including the 10-7 record — we might as well build a statue of Ben Johnson right now. Bears fans would be thrilled by numbers such as those put forth by Nix during his rookie season, even if the yardage total is slightly lower than I predicted late last week. But it’s not so much the yardage totals that will matter at the end of the season. It’s about the process of getting Williams up to speed ahead of the season, and from the sounds of it, the Bears have made major strides here in the last few weeks.
Caleb Williams Ready For Start of 2025 Season
It’s no secret that all offseason, Caleb Williams has been coached incredibly hard by Ben Johnson, Declan Doyle, quarterbacks coach JT Barrett and the entire offensive staff in Chicago. It’s an all-hands-on-deck effort to get the franchise quarterback playing at the level everyone expected him to upon his arrival in Chicago. But progression hasn’t necessarily been linear.
Good days have been followed by bad days, and some terrible days have been followed by some of Caleb Williams’ best practices of the summer. All throughout, the coaching has remained consistent in both tone and message. It’s a tough love approach to help one of the most naturally gifted quarterbacks in the NFL reach his full potential. And from the sounds of it, the gameplan which was conceived all the way back in January has been working.
“[My] knowledge of football and NFL football has grown even just sitting in some of the meetings this, year and even today and going through our first game week and just understanding things I may not have understood last year,” Williams said earlier this week. “Whether that’s defenses, whether it’s offenses, I think I’ve taken a step there. I have to keep taking those steps throughout this year and many years from now. But Ben, he’s been great for me. He’s pushed me. Like I’ve said many times, he’s a teacher and he will be persistent until you get it.”
Although he may not have gotten a shout-out by name, if this goes as well as everyone in Chicago hopes it will, soon enough Declan Doyle will no longer be a relative unknown.