Luke Getsy can’t pinpoint the moment from his interview last month when he won over his new boss. But he does know there was a profound connection established in the initial conversations he had with Chicago Bears coach Matt Eberflus.

Eberflus, a defensive-minded coach who spent the last four seasons in a coordinator role with the Indianapolis Colts, needed an offensive leader to help groom young quarterback Justin Fields and to re-energize a Bears offense that has been wayward for most of the last three seasons. When he spoke with Getsy, both men sensed they had similar values for how they want to build things.

“Listen, I’m an open and honest person,” Getsy said Thursday, speaking with reporters for the first time since being hired as offensive coordinator. “I’m very specific in who I want to be and the kind of people I want to be around. As he and I laid out philosophically who we wanted to be, we were aligned. It all made sense. That process was pretty smooth. And fortunately for me, it all worked out.”

To this point anyway.

Getsy, 37, made a strong enough case to to take the reins of Fields’ development, to attempt to transport the Bears into the 21st century of NFL production. But even as he starts this new leg of his football journey with confidence, Getsy should know how treacherous this mountain has proved to be.

Consider the past 10 coordinators to hold his title at Halas Hall. Bill Lazor and Mark Helfrich. Dowell Loggains and Adam Gase. Aaron Kromer, Mike Tice and Mike Martz. Ron Turner, Terry Shea and John Shoop.

For whatever reason, this hasn’t been a career springboard or a role that has been ready-made for lengthy YouTube highlight montages. In fact, since the start of the 2000 season, the Bears have finished in the top 10 of the league in total yardage just once while settling in the bottom 10 16 times.

This season, they finished 24th in total yards and 27th in scoring, failing to establish consistency or continuity. Those persistent struggles cost coach Matt Nagy his job and forced the latest Lake Forest reboot project, which Getsy is in the early stages of troubleshooting.

He will do so with confidence and a firm understanding of the stakes. And Getsy can lean on his experience with a prolific Packers offense as a compass. He spent seven of the last eight seasons in Green Bay, first as a quality control coach and receivers coach under Mike McCarthy and then in a second stint as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator under Matt LaFleur.

For the last two seasons, that offered Getsy the experience of working closely with league MVP Aaron Rodgers while also attempting to mold young quarterback Jordan Love, whom the Packers drafted 26th in 2020.

Now, with his leap to a heightened role in Chicago, Getsy unites with Fields, intent on elevating the Bears starting quarterback. Getsy emphasized multiple times Thursday how eager he was to get to know Fields on a deeper level. His first impressions, through conversations during the 2021 pre-draft process, were positive.

“Super impressed with the man, the person,” Getsy said. “You can feel the determination and the will inside of him. … I’m very optimistic about the type of person he is. And he has the will and the desire where he wants to be a great leader too.”

The identity of a new-look Bears offense will emerge in due time. Fields’ growth should come along with that. For now, Getsy is simply pushing to get things up and running and hoping his offense can quickly develop a sharp understanding of what it does well. To that end, Getsy emphasized Thursday the value in committing to the running game and then building a reliable play-action attack off that.

“It’s all about protecting the quarterback,” he said. “Everything is about the quarterback. If you can run the ball and you can play(-action) pass, you’re going to have an opportunity to protect your quarterback.”

Getsy stopped short of detailing his specific vision for Fields or even describing how he assesses the quarterback’s skill set. But he made it abundantly clear he will make a concerted effort to quickly establish the strengths of the Bears offense.

“We’ve got to dive into what everybody does best, right?” he said. “And it starts with the quarterback. This is a quarterback-driven offense. The things the quarterback does well, that’s going to be the driver of who we are. And then we’re going to marry that to what the other guys on the football field do well. That’s the purpose of the offensive coordinator — to dive into what people do best and then build the offense around that.”

Step one, Getsy said, will require him to establish connections with his new players. “Once we can start to build that trust, that passion for each other where we know we have the same common goal, we’re going to be able to take this thing in the direction we need to,” he said.

Establishing rapport and building trust in a second-year quarterback like Fields, who has 10 career starts, will require a different touch and take on a different dynamic than Getsy used to bond with Rodgers, who just finished his 17th season and won his fourth MVP award Thursday night. But Getsy is eager to get those wheels turning.

“You have to dive into that relationship if you want to have any kind of success,” he said. “Just because (Justin) is young or whatever, it’s still about getting to know the person. What drives them? What is their style of learning? All that stuff is going to be critical for us to dive into once we get together.”

Last week, Matt Eberflus spoke glowingly about Getsy’s potential as an offensive coordinator.

“Very innovative, very smart,” Eberflus said. “He’s excited to get to work with (Justin) when he’s able to. That’s going to be a nice thing to watch and be part of.”

Fields expressed his eagerness to begin offering input on the brand of offense that will make him both comfortable and maximize his production. “It’s important for coaches to run plays their players are good at running,” he said. “I think (the coaches) already have a base idea of what my strengths are. But (it’s also about) me being able to communicate with them now and tell them what my strengths are so we can get on the same page.”

Getsy made it known Thursday there aren’t any convenient shortcuts. “This is going to take time,” he said.

But with a chance to be the top overseer of an offense, Getsy is ready to roll. His excitement for being able to call plays — a duty he sometimes took on during the preseason for the Packers — is hard to contain.

“Once you touch it, man, you’re just like, ‘This is the passion I have,’ ” Getsy said.

But just as he plans on forging bonds with his new players, Getsy also is looking to further his connection with his new assistants.

“We’re going to build something that’s going to be our own, and I have a passion for being involved in that,” he said. “We want this thing to be ours. This isn’t going to be somebody else’s (offense) or a copycat of somebody else’s. This is going to be ours.”