The Luke Getsy Effect
I’ve talked about Getsy’s prowess as a player and his ability to get the most out of his receiving weapons, but there are a few other intriguing phenomena that surround his career.
Obviously, the head coach and coordinators have the most impact when it comes to how the team performs on the field, but during his first four seasons on staff in Green Bay (2014-2017), the team won 12, 10, 10 and seven games. The seven games are an outlier because star QB Aaron Rodgers missed over half the season with an injury.
Getsy left Green Bay for Mississippi State in 2018, and the Packers went 6-9-1 in his absence with a fully healthy Rodgers. When he returned in 2019 under Matt LaFleur, the team won 13 games en route to an NFC North title in each of the next three seasons. When he left in 2022 for the Bears OC job, the Packers once again dipped to 8-9 and 9-8. Getsy is not the entire answer, but he is part of the equation, and this pattern is very interesting.
Aaron Rodgers is Aaron Rodgers, but it’s not like Getsy hasn’t had a hand in his success. Getsy coached Green Bay from 2014-2017 and again from 2019-2021. In his first stint, he was a quality control and wide receivers coach, and Rodgers only won a single MVP award. However, when Getsy returned as a quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator from 2019-2021, Rodgers won two MVPs during this three-year stretch.
He also led the league in passer rating twice and in touchdowns and completion percentage once each. That completion percentage was also the best of his career, and he threw for a career-high 48 touchdowns in 2020. He also threw only 13 interceptions over those three seasons, and the year Getsy left, he threw for 12 in that one season alone.
The last interesting pattern that I noticed in this deep dive into Luke Getsy’s coaching career is how the Bears’ offense fared overall before and during his tenure. In the two years prior to him taking the Bears OC job, the team regressed from the 22nd to the 27th-ranked scoring offense.
In Getsy’s two seasons at the helm of the Bears offense, the team improved to 23rd and then to 18th in terms of scoring offense. In fact, last season’s Bears team was their highest-scoring since 2018 and only their second top-20 offense since 2013.
Getsy was not a perfect offensive coordinator for the Bears, but he was handcuffed by poor QB play. Justin Fields was traded for a sixth-round pick shortly after the season and Getsy squeezed every bit he could out of the talent that he had. Raider fans must remember the beat down he served us with a rookie quarterback from Division II Shepherd University, Tyson Bagent, who Getsy was able to win two games with under center.
Las Vegas will be relying on Getsy to design a great offense because, unlike other head coaches, Antonio Pierce is not known to be a brilliant offensive mind. Much like Bears head coach Matt Eberflus, Pierce climbed the ranks as a linebackers coach and will be leaving the offense in Getsy’s hands. My gut tells me that after looking into his coaching history, the Silver and Black will be just fine.