Two years ago, the Bears needed a coordinator to inherit the best defense in football.
They thought they had the perfect candidate, too: former Jets head coach Todd Bowles, who’d known Matt Nagy since the Bears head coach was a baby. Bowles was familiar with chairman George McCaskey and Ryan Pace, too, having interviewed for the Bears’ head coaching vacancy that went to John Fox.
One problem: Buccaneers’ Bruce Arians, Bowles’ mentor since he played for him at Temple, was assembling a staff to take to Tampa Bay and wanted Bowles to go with him.
Bowles stuck with Arians.