Success is a great thing in professional sports. It is the goal of every organization. However, it also comes with a price. When you have success, other teams desperately want a piece of it. That is why you often see key assistant coaches get poached from your team's staff all the time. The Chicago Bears have seen this happen many times in the past. Buddy Ryan got plucked after the Super Bowl win in 1985. Adam Gase left after one productive year in 2015. The Denver Broncos lured Vic Fangio away after the 2018 season.
The Bears had to know there was a strong likelihood their staff would come under the microscope as their wins started piling up. According to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network, one name that is already getting attention from around the league is offensive coordinator Declan Doyle.
Bears OC Declan Doyle, 29: One of the youngest coordinators in modern NFL history, Doyle spent three years as a student assistant at Iowa before then-Saints coach Sean Payton hired him as an offensive assistant in 2019. When Payton ended a one-year retirement to take the Broncos' head coaching job, he hired Doyle as tight ends coach in Denver, where Doyle spent two seasons before Ben Johnson hand-picked him to serve as OC. With the Bears off to a fast start and QB Caleb Williams playing better, Doyle's pedigree could compel some teams to at least want to pick his brain in January.
This isn't really a surprise.
Every team is always looking for the next young hotshot offensive mind. It's why the Bears made their hard push to hire Ben Johnson. Now that Doyle has played a key role in taking the offense from 32nd last year to 4th this year, it is only natural that teams would take notice.
Losing Doyle is something the Chicago Bears can survive.
This is precisely why they hired Johnson. He is the true architect of the offense. One of the key reasons for making the head coach the offensive play caller is so that other teams can't poach them away. This would be a situation closer to what the Los Angeles Rams experience. Every year or two, another of their offensive coordinators gets plucked after spending time under Sean McVay. It doesn't hurt the Rams much. McVay is the one running the show over there, so the train keeps rolling.
The same would happen for the Chicago Bears. Losing Doyle would hurt for a brief period, but Johnson is good enough to make it temporary. It is a safe assumption they might already be grooming a replacement in quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett. He worked with Johnson in Detroit. If Doyle does get hired away, it's great for him. The Bears won't change course much.
