Nick Foles’ horse whisperer finally has a new job.
The much-traveled Bill Lazor, Foles’ quarterbacks coach during his historic, record-setting 2013 season, is the Bears’ new offensive coordinator, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.
The Bears are Lazor's sixth organization in the last 10 years.
Lazor has been out of football since he was fired as the Bengals’ offensive coordinator a year ago this week.
In Chicago, Lazor replaces Mark Helfrich, who the Bears fired after the end of the season. Helfrich came to the Bears after he was fired at the University of Oregon, where he was Chip Kelly's offensive coordinator and replaced Kelly as head coach when Kelly was hired by the Eagles in 2013.
One of Kelly’s first hires when he got to Philly was Lazor, who had been offensive coordinator at Virginia the previous three seasons.
In his one year working with the Eagles’ quarterbacks, Foles had his big year — his first big year — with 27 touchdown passes and 2 interceptions and two more TDs in a playoff loss to the Saints.
NFL
His 27 touchdowns set a NFL record for most TD passes in a season by a quarterback with two or fewer interceptions. Tom Brady broke that record in 2016. He tied an NFL record when he threw seven touchdowns against the Raiders in Oakland.
Foles in that one year with Lazor led the NFL in touchdown percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating with a 119.2 mark that remains the 3rd-highest in NFL history.
Lazor’s work with Foles earned him the offensive coordinator job with the Dolphins in 2014. His first year, the Dolphins ranked 11th in the NFL in scoring, their highest ranking since 2001. But after the Dolphins went 6-10 the next year, Joe Philbin and his entire staff were fired.
Lazor then spent a year coaching QBs with the Bengals before two years as the Bengals’ offensive coordinator.
In Chicago, he will work under head coach Matt Nagy, who had just been fired as part of Andy Reid’s staff when Kelly hired Lazor. But the two haven’t worked together.
Nagy and Lazor have one other thing in common: Both coached Foles. Nagy was the Chiefs' offensive coordinator in 2016, Foles' one year in Kansas City.
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