Shane Waldron still can envision the sign hanging on the way out of the New England Patriots locker room from when he was an offensive assistant there in 2008-09, a brief set of instructions for players and coaches to follow when they left the building.
Don’t believe or fuel the hype. Manage expectations. Ignore the noise. Speak for yourself.
A decade and a half later, those were among the many lessons Waldron carried into Halas Hall when he became Chicago Bears offensive coordinator.
“It fits right in here,” Waldron said last week.
Waldron began his second stint as an offensive coordinator this season amid massive expectations for the Bears.
The preseason hype obviously centered on rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, the consensus No. 1 pick who is looking to upset decades of quarterback mediocrity in Chicago. It included the celebration of the roster general manager Ryan Poles built. The intrigue with new wide receivers Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze joining DJ Moore. The makeover of head coach Matt Eberflus, whose guidance of Williams was featured on the HBO show “Hard Knocks.”
And behind the scenes of all of that was Waldron, the 20th-year coach and former Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator who this preseason was perhaps one of the least-publicly-talked-about-most-important-Bears-people.
In many ways, when Eberflus picked Waldron to replace Luke Getsy last winter, he staked the development of Williams — if not his own coaching future — on Waldron and his ability to orchestrate an offense to suit the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner.
It’s at once a pressurized situation and a potential dream opportunity for a coach. And one in which the noise is ramping up.
In the Bears’ season-opening, 24-17 win Sunday against the Tennessee Titans, the Bears netted just 148 yards of offense, with 64 net passing yards. They were 2-for-13 on third down and didn’t score an offensive touchdown.
Williams said his footwork was off at times. He misfired on a handful of passes. The interior offensive line had some protection issues. The run game was mostly flat. The offense struggled to find a rhythm in a game headlined by defense and special teams touchdowns.
The Bears debut for both Williams and Waldron was inauspicious. But Waldron examined it matter-of-factly this week, talking about the game like a steppingstone in the offense’s and Williams’ development.
For Waldron, managing expectations means focusing on the operation, moving positively through a process he has developed over years of working under coaching greats, such as Bill Belichick.
“For me going back every single Monday, win, lose or draw, it’s got to be the same,” Waldron said. “There are always going to be corrections after a win. There are always going to be corrections after a loss. … I’m a little biased, but I think we have the greatest job. Showing up every single Monday no matter what happened on Sunday ready to work and ready to approach and correct with an enthusiastic and forward-thinking mindset.
“On to the next week. That’s what drives us.”
The next week is a “Sunday Night Football” meeting with the Texans and 2023 Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud in Houston, where the scrutiny on Williams and Waldron will be even more intense.
The student and teacher
Waldron’s past boss and co-worker log over his 19 years of coaching, including 10 at the professional level, reads like a Who’s Who of NFL coaches.
Belichick, of course, with the Patriots, and also Josh McDaniels and Bill O’Brien. Sean McVay in Waldron’s four seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, and also Matt LaFleur, Kevin O’Connell and Zac Taylor. Jay Gruden in his one year with the Washington Commanders. Pete Carroll in his three seasons with the Seattle Seahawks.
Waldron has tried to take a little from each of the leaders to add to his toolbox as he develops his own style.
From the Patriots crew, it was learning the importance of precision and attention to detail. From McVay, how to communicate, and that included touching base with every player and coach individually, not just as a group. From Carroll, an extreme emphasis and belief in the basics and playing with great effort and hustle, similar to how Eberflus operates now. From Mark Whipple and Charley Molnar when Waldron coached in college at Massachusetts, how to handle younger players.
“Taking away from each one of those stops, and learning that it’s not a one-size-fits-all in this league with everything we’re doing,” Waldron told the Tribune. “The basics, like Coach Carroll instilled in us, those are for everybody. But then how everyone learns, how everyone sees the game, it’s not all exactly the same. So (it’s about) being able to reach those guys in different ways.”
When Eberflus introduced Waldron as his offensive coordinator on Feb. 22, he zeroed in on what drew him to the former Seahawks coordinator: creativity and curiosity in constructing an offense, adaptability within a season and a game and a strong leader and teacher who has a passion for football.
After working with him for several months, Eberflus went back to many of those qualities when asked about Waldron before Week 1.
“Outstanding teacher, great communicator, works well with the players, understands skill sets and how to work with those guys in terms of what they do well,” Eberflus said. “And we’re still formulating that as we go through the season. We’ll be doing that the whole time and adjusting as we go. But that’s what I like. He’s able to adjust. His teaching methods are really clear and concise. … Excited about his leadership and excited about where he’s taking this offense.”
For the Bears offense, a lot of the last four months have been about Waldron’s teaching.
More than one player started off their description of Waldron as “a smart guy.” Tight end Gerald Everett at one point called Waldron “like a computer.”
Being smart doesn’t always translate to teaching skills. But passing game coordinator Thomas Brown said he believes Waldron’s upbeat mentality and work to connect with different players and position groups have helped get through.
Brown, who also worked with Waldron in L.A. in 2020, cited the offensive staff’s use of “hooks” — phrasing or wordplay using familiar sayings, names or cities — that help players make connections in their brains to plays. And he also pointed to Waldron’s willingness to take feedback from players to understand how they want to learn things.
Waldron, who also brought quarterbacks coach Kerry Joseph with him from Seattle, spoke of it as a player-focused approach.
“To me, it’s talking through everything and starting with that individual teaching approach of each guy is a little bit different in the league,” Waldron said. “So you lay that foundation and then you’re able to talk to different players and learn from the guys as well. I’m going to learn from Keenan Allen every single day because this is a guy who has been out there and had a million reps.
“So just starting with the basics and not skipping any steps. Because the goal is for the players to play as fast as possible. And so if we’re too fast on an install or trying to do too much in terms of something might look good on a piece of paper, but we have to put ourselves in the players’ shoes on game day. So having that approach: How do we make it fast for them?”
As backup quarterback Tyson Bagent learned his second offense in two NFL seasons, he found Waldron did a good job of referencing plays they’ve run in the past and relating new plays to it. So: “This is that, we’re just switching the formation here. Or this is that, but there’s a different conversion on that route. Little things like that to make it easy to click in our brains and make sense.”
“He’s got a lot of experience for things he’s done and the things that have happened with the things he’s run,” Bagent said. “He’s very much on the player’s side with things and making sure that we feel comfortable running everything he’s running.”
Such guidance will be crucial with Williams.
A critical pairing
Waldron understood the type of player the Bears would be getting in Williams through studying him in the predraft process.
The joy Waldron has discovered over the last several months — first in predraft meetings and Zoom calls and now in breakfast club meetings, walk-throughs and practices — has been in getting to know Williams as a person and competitor.
“That makes every day coming into work an exciting moment to keep helping him grow, keep helping him learn,” Waldron said. “Because he’s so willing to listen to everything everyone around him is coaching him up on.
“He always wants to know the why. He wants to know the full structure of everything that is going on. He doesn’t want to skip the process, jumping to the last step. He wants to know every detail as he builds up to what he knows is a great ownership of this offense as the season goes on.”
Before Eberflus hired Waldron, he had a long conversation with Carroll, who gleamed about Waldron’s adaptability in coaching Russell Wilson, Geno Smith and Drew Lock in Seattle. Waldron also helped 2016 No. 1 pick Jared Goff early in his Rams career.
In 2022 with Waldron as the coordinator, Smith, at age 32, became the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year. He completed 69.8% of his passes for 4,282 yards with 30 touchdowns and 11 interceptions — though the Seahawks offense last season dropped off under Waldron and Smith.
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The marriage with Williams, of course, is different, not just because of the quarterback’s skill set and pedigree but because of the outsized expectations he carries.
That’s where Waldron homes in on the process that Williams so eagerly has embraced.
“There are external expectations that are totally separate from the way we operate every single day,” Waldron said. “The expectations for our daily operating is how hard we’re working, what we’re doing, but there isn’t this down-the-road expectation. The expectation is: What does walk-through look like today? What’s practice look like this afternoon? If we work hard and prepare the right way, we have great players around this building right here, then you trust the process and the results will happen.”
In some ways, Brown sees Waldron and Williams as having a similar mentality, one that seemingly is perfect for all of the hype around the Bears this season.
Williams, Brown said, is “about as even as they come.” And Waldron is equally steady.
“He’s always consistent, same guy every day, which I value,” Brown said. “I’ve been around some guys who can be roller coasters. This is a very emotional game. They can be really high, really low. He is always positive, always upbeat.
“It gives guys an opportunity to be themselves, particularly when you’re dealing with the quarterback, which at times is a high-pressure position.”
That evenness will be tested throughout the season. But Bagent said Waldron has promised to remain steady in games as well to help the players stay calm.
“He made it a point to let us know that at any point — stressful, good, bad, any point in between — that he keeps the same tone and he keeps the same delivery,” Bagent said. “And he expects the same thing out of us. To keep the same attacking mindset and even keelness no matter how things are going.”
Everett, who spent four seasons with Waldron with the Rams and then another one with him in Seattle, called him “very low key.”
“He’s not an attention-seeker,” Everett said. “He’s more of a lead-by-example type of guy, being more efficient day in and day out. No wasted movement, no wasted speech, that type of thing.”
Even with that mindset, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Waldron, Williams and the Bears offense.
Playing against a Bears defense that wants to be a top-five unit, Williams and the offense had several training camp practices where they struggled to make big plays. There were some clunky series in the preseason. And then there was the opener.
Williams told the Tribune in late August that he thought the offense was “just about right there” in getting it to click.
“We’re still working out some of the kinks of knowing our favorite things to run,” Williams said. “When and where and how. Between Shane and I, we’re just working out some small stuff. And then the explosive plays? They’re right there. They’re brewing. They’re super close. And some of them are happening. And the more routine plays? We’re just accumulating reps and getting better at those.”
Now, pitted against Stroud, the 2023 No. 2 pick, it’s time for them to show it.
‘Not freaking out’
Tight end Cole Kmet wasn’t thrilled.
Against the Titans, Kmet, whom the Bears signed to a $50 million extension last year, was on the field for 48% of the team’s offensive snaps. He had one 4-yard catch, not the type of showing Bears fans are used to seeing from a player who has been a rock for a number of quarterbacks in the past.
But Kmet also didn’t need an explanation. He has been around enough new offenses — Waldron’s is his third in five seasons — to know that sometimes it takes time to iron things out, especially with as many new personnel as the Bears have.
“It’s just important to remain patient,” Kmet said Wednesday from the Bears locker room. “I’m not freaking out. I don’t think anybody in here is freaking out. There’s a lot of newness in here offensively speaking. It’s going to be for us to continue to rely on our defense and special teams while we catch up to speed here. There’s definitely an aspect of transition and getting used to the flow of things.”
Relying on defense and special teams isn’t exactly what juiced up fans in the offseason.
But it may be the reality during some weeks as the offense under Waldron and Williams finds its way.
On Thursday, Waldron took responsibility for Kmet’s underusage, saying the tight end has only done right and it’s on Waldron to balance the reps with Everett. He said the same about not using the Bears’ top three receivers — Moore, Allen and Odunze — on the field at the same time enough with Kmet and running back D’Andre Swift.
He added he needs to do a better job of getting the Bears in a rhythm.
“We get in a little bit of an up-and-down rhythm throughout the course of a game, some of those personnel pairings that we’re looking to get to really didn’t play out the way we were hoping to (during) the course of the game,” Waldron said. “And it’s going to be tough each week, obviously, to have a perfect distribution of everyone’s reps right there. But it’s something we look at as a staff to how we can do a better job to help our guys, get in that rotation and get those guys out there together more often.”
Waldron put it on himself to adjust within the game, such as when the Bears went to a no-huddle offense against the Titans to help Williams find a spark.
“It’s always going to be player-driven, having the flexibility within an offensive system to adjust and adapt within certain parts of a game, like that example right there,” Waldron said. “ ‘Hey, we need to get into a rhythm right here. We’ve got a good package of things we can get to.’ And he was able to execute at a nice level right there to get us some rhythm going there.
“In generalities, what can our players do the best? What do they feel comfortable with, knowing that we have that multiplicity that we can utilize from an offensive standpoint? And then be able to adjust in game to try to get things going.”
Waldron is not a stranger to adversity as an offensive playcaller.
After Smith’s comeback season in 2022, the Seahawks dropped off in 2023. They finished 21st with 322.9 yards per game — though 11th with 5.52 yards per play — 28th with 92.9 rushing yards per game and 23rd, 31st and 25th in third- and fourth-down and red-zone percentage. Waldron didn’t have the opportunity to choreograph another comeback season in Seattle. Carroll and the Seahawks parted ways, and Waldron moved on to the Bears.
Now, it’s on Waldron to help the Bears find their way in the weeks ahead, and some expect he’ll use help from players and coaches too.
“He takes feedback from every single guy on the staff, and if it fits, it fits,” Brown said.
Said Everett: “If there is one coach in the league that I feel like takes input from his players, it would be Shane Waldron, for sure. … Just trying to deploy us in different ways and better ways than the following week.”
Waldron said he found the learning-from-all-parties approach meshes well with Eberflus, and both pointed to their communication as key to fueling their early relationship, another critical one within the Bears ecosystem.
Eberflus said he and Waldron are “just working together to find the right answers.”
“It’s a work in progress, as it always is,” Eberflus said. “But it’s really easy to work with him.”
Not to add to the noise — but all of Chicago will be waiting for that work to pay off.
