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The Bears can only hope Chris Beatty works magic with their other receivers like he seems to have worked with DJ Moore.According to a report by ESPN’s Courtney Cronin, the Bears addressed possibly their most important remaining unfilled coaching position by hiring former Chargers receivers coach.
Beatty inherits a wide receiver group lopsided in production last year. Moore had more targets than all the other seven wide receivers who wore Bears uniforms last season combined.
Beatty has been working the past three seasons with high-quality players in Los Angeles, including Mike Williams, Keenan Allen, Josh Palmer and Quentin Johnston. In the last two seasons, the Chargers led AFC teams in catches by wide receivers (512) and were second in yards (6,283).
While at Maryland from 2016-18, he coached DJ Moore and was receivers coach there during Moore’s most productive college season (2017, 80 catches, 1033 yards, 8 TDs).
Beatty played in the CFL in 1995 with the Baltimore Stallions and 1997 with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He’s been coaching since 1998 in high school football and moved to colleges in 2006 with Hampton as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. His college stops included Northern Illinois, Illinois and Wisconsin for a season each.
Beatty’s first season in the NFL was 2019 with the Steelers as wide receivers coach and in his two years there he coached JuJu Smith-Schuster, Diontae Johnson, James Washington, Ray-Ray McCloud and Chase Claypool. He was the Steelers coach when Claypool made 62 receptions in 109 targets and had nine touchdown catches as a rookie.
The Bears had trouble getting production from young receivers Tyler Scott and Velus Jones Jr. last year.
They also had problems with receivers getting separation last year, in general. According to NextGen Stats. Darnell Mooney was the only receiver in the NFL’s top 45 wideouts at average yards of separation.
The Bears still need to add a running backs coach and any assistant position coaches where they might see a need.
