Bill Lazor joins the Bears as offensive coordinator this year with 13 seasons of NFL coaching experience.
Here are three things you should know about Lazor:
(1) Lazor's first three NFL jobs were on staffs headed by Dan Reeves, Joe Gibbs and Mike Holmgren, who have combined to win six Super Bowls.
"I've been fortunate with the people I've worked for and how much success they've had," Lazor said. "Also the kind of people they were, the kind of men they were. I've been able to spend a large portion of my time coaching in the NFL watching guys who were great leaders, great people and great technicians."
Lazor entered the NFL as an offensive quality control coach under Reeves with the Falcons in 2003, served as an offensive assistant and quarterbacks coach under Gibbs with the Redskins from 2004-07 and worked as quarterbacks coach under Holmgren with the Seahawks in 2008.
More recently, Lazor worked as Eagles quarterbacks coach (2013), Dolphins offensive coordinator (2014-15) and Bengals quarterbacks coach (2016) and offensive coordinator (2017-18).
Lazor said that the head coaches he's worked for have a "very clear vision of what they wanted the football to look like."
"When they stood on the practice field and watched how we practiced, they knew, 'This is or this is not what I have in mind,' he said. "Some of them did it with more run game, some of them did it with more passing game, all different philosophies and offensive systems. But each of them in his own way knew, 'I have a vision for what football is going to look like here.' And when it didn't fit that vision, they fixed it."
(2) Lazor has maximized the performances of the quarterbacks he's coached, including Nick Foles, Ryan Tannehill and Andy Dalton.
As Eagles quarterbacks coach in 2013, Lazor helped Foles have the best season of his NFL career, passing for 2,891 yards with 27 touchdowns, two interceptions and a league-leading 119.2 passer rating.
As Dolphins offensive coordinator in 2014, Lazor tutored Tannehill, who threw for 4,045 yards and 27 touchdowns, the most by a Dolphins quarterback since Hall of Famer Dan Marino had 30 in 1994.
As Bengals quarterbacks coach in 2016, Lazor helped Andy Dalton earn his third trip to the Pro Bowl after passing for 4,206 yards, the second most in franchise history.
Asked about working with quarterbacks, Lazor said: "The first thing you have to do is evaluate them. You go in recognizing each one is different. So one guy might be very paint-by-numbers in his thinking: 'When I make a decision on where I'm throwing the football, this receiver is No. 1, this receiver is No. 2 and this receiver is No. 3, and that's how I'm going to read it always.' For a guy like that, you have to work on helping him learn to be more of an artist; see more than one thing at once.
"Another guy might be a real outside-the-box thinker. So for that guy it's the opposite; for him you've really got to keep your thumb on him.
"Each guy is different. Usually they aren't that extreme. Usually they're somewhere in between, so you evaluate who they are and what they have, and like any teacher, you develop your lesson plan for the specifics of that guy."
(3) Lazor was born and raised in Scranton, Pa., home of the fictional Dunder-Miffin paper sales company featured in the TV show "The Office."
The popular program debuted in 2005, but Lazor didn't watch an episode for the first time until 2008—when he was flying to Seattle to interview for the Seahawks quarterbacks coach position.
"Everyone outside of Scranton knows Scranton for 'The Office,'" Lazor said. "The thing that my family thinks about it is that it's the perfect level of humor for my father. To someone who's born and raised and works in Scranton, that's the perfect humor for him."
