The Chicago Bears have hired Richard Hightower to be their new special teams coordinator — the last of the three coordinators to be hired by new coach Matt Eberflus.
Hightower has been the special teams coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers for the past five seasons. He has 15 years of NFL experience, including a stint as an assistant special teams coach for the Bears in 2016 under coach John Fox and special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers.
Hightower’s 49ers unit helped spark a divisional round playoff win over the Green Bay Packers last month, blocking a punt and returning it for a touchdown in the fourth quarter at Lambeau Field. The 49ers upset the top-seeded Packers 13-10 on Robbie Gould’s walk-off 45-yard field goal as time expired.
For what it’s worth, the 49ers ranked 25th out of 32 teams in Rick Gosselin’s 2021 special teams rankings. (The Packers were 32nd.)
Hightower joins offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and defensive coordinator Alan Williams on a revamped Bears coaching staff. Hightower replaces Chris Tabor, who left for the same role with the Carolina Panthers.
For the fourth straight season, Tabor’s special teams unit produced a Pro Bowl player as return specialist Jakeem Grant was selected to the NFC team. Grant is the third Bears returner to be named to the Pro Bowl in the past four years, following Cordarrelle Patterson (2019 and 2020) and Tarik Cohen (2018).
With Tabor exiting for Carolina, the Bears had been hoping to hire Raiders special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia. But that ultimately didn’t materialize and they ultimately united with Hightower.
After finishing 6-11 this season, the Bears fired general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy and replaced them with new GM Ryan Poles and Eberflus. Eberflus has spent the past week-and-a-half adding to this coaching staff.
In addition to hiring Hightower, Getsy and Williams, the Bears have added three other assistants to their offensive staff with Andrew Janocko taking over as quarterbacks coach, Chris Morgan hired to oversee the offensive line and Tyke Tolbert as the team’s new receivers coach and passing game coordinator. The Bears are still working to add a running backs coach and tight ends coach.
On the defensive side of the ball, Dave Borgonzi was officially added to the Bears staff last week to coach the team’s linebackers while James Rowe was hired to coach defensive backs with Chris Overstreet II tabbed as the assistant defensive backs coach.
With the Bears transitioning from a 3-4 defense to a 4-3, Eberflus may make a couple more additions to his defensive staff in the days ahead.