Bears WR coach Mike Furrey yells because he cares

The Bears' first padded training-camp practice of 2018 was off to a slow start. Rain, clouds and an intermittent breeze cloaked the field at Olivet Nazarene University that Sunday morning in late July. The practice music had yet to crank up. The Bears' pace was slow and steady. The crowd was wet and muted, waiting for some payoff for making the drive down to Bourbonnais.

Then like a bolt out of the blue, the first sign that things were picking up …

"That's not how we do it!" a Bears assistant coach shouted from the morass of the team's individual drills. "Finish the play!"

Of course it was Mike Furrey. One of the players he's tasked to coach up wasn't doing his job. The pace - at least among the wide receiver group - picked up almost immediately thereafter.

"Mike's a vocal guy, as you see," head coach Matt Nagy said last week. "He's energetic. He's not afraid to get on them. But that's a respect thing."

Anyone who spent time witnessing the Bears' recently completed camp sessions in Bourbonnais likely heard a stentorian roar at some point from Furrey, the team's new wide receivers coach, likely imploring his unit to give him more. Sharper execution. More purpose. Stronger focus. Attention to detail. Furrey demands it all.

This first-year NFL assistant coach has made it clear with his strident approach that he isn't limping back into the league after bouncing around all levels of college football the past several seasons.

"I yell because I'm loud," Furrey explains. "I like to be loud. That's part of the guys knowing if I just sit on the sideline and don't say anything, if I'm a player I'm probably thinking, 'Well, he's probably not paying attention,' and I just feel that.

"If I'm out there and I'm communicating with those guys and they can hear me, I think to them they know, one, you're being watched and, two, maybe this guy really does care about what I'm doing. Maybe he really does care about the little things and the details, and I think that's a relationship we obviously had to grow into because we've never met before, but it's pretty fun. I've got a great group. I love these guys."

Then when you focus in and look closer at the yeller, you see Furrey's get-up: sleeveless sweatshirt over skintight T-shirt, with shorts over back compression pants. He's also quite yoked up for a coach who looks to this day like he could catch a few passes as a slot receiver, the position he forged his way into during an eight-year NFL career with four teams.

It paints a fascinating picture of a former player taking this new coaching challenge head on. His charges appear to be responding to Furrey's in-their-face challenges.

"Oh, he can get on you," rookie WR Javon Wims told PFW. Furrey called out Wims in June OTAs during a simple drill that the seventh-round pick from Georgia apparently didn't finish the way the coach liked.

"This isn't Georgia anymore!" Furrey said at the time, catching the rookie's attention, and Furrey hasn't eased up on his demands of his talented group yet. But the rookie appreciates that fire.

"He's really one of the smartest coaches I've ever been around," Wims said. "His attention to detail … I've never seen anything like it.

"He's also a players' coach. I know I love him, and all of us love him so far."

Furrey's coaching style isn't much different from how he first entered the NFL. Undrafted out of Northern Iowa (after walking on at Ohio State his first season of college) in 2000, Furrey was cut by the Indianapolis Colts and took four years before he'd get another taste of the league. Over the following three seasons, he played receiver for the XFL's Las Vegas Outlaws for one season and two seasons with the New York Dragons of the Arena Football League, where he was teammates with Nagy, a quarterback. It took Furrey four more years to get a second chance to play in the NFL, grinding his way back. It's that kind of work ethic the former self-made receiver expects out of the Bears' receivers now.

"I think the good man upstairs has blessed us all to be here, has given us a God-given talent, and if you're wasting your talent out here, at this level, that disappoints me and that's the only thing I don't like," Furrey said of his tough-love style. "If you want to be lazy out here, and you're gifted with all that talent, I got a problem with that. It's tough love because I believe there's a way to play this game, and I think it's with great passion, great discipline."

This is a receiver corps that perhaps has as many new faces - and as much new excitement - as any position group in the NFL this year. A year ago, the Bears' receivers caught a mere 131 passes and four touchdowns, with only three catches longer than 26 yards (all by Josh Bellamy). Bellamy is still here, but he's one of the few holdovers if you don't count Kevin White, who was injured less than four quarters into the season.

Now Bellamy and White are fighting for offensive roles on a suddenly crowded and more talented depth chart. It features former 1,400-yard receiver Allen Robinson; rookies Anthony Miller (Memphis' all-time leading receiver) and Wims (leading receiver for UGA's national runners-up); plus speedball Taylor Gabriel, who has 10 catches of 40 yards or more the past four NFL seasons.

They represent hope in head coach Nagy's first season. And Furrey, his old Arena League teammate from way back, is the man to coach them up, Nagy believes.

"Here's a guy that has played the receiver position, so instantly you have credit from the players," Nagy said. "And on top of that, he played some safety, too. He knows from the defensive side how that works. …

"I am really happy that he's our wide receiver coach. These guys are all growing. They all believe in Coach Furrey, and he believes in them. So to have that energy on that side of the ball, you can feel it. It's electric. I am excited to see how that position continues to grow over time."

The return of Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator was the most important hire Nagy was able to make this offseason. Bringing back offensive line coach Harry Hiestand was considered another coup. And the addition of offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich can be chalked up as the most intriguing addition to the staff.

But don't overlook the importance of Furrey, who spent the past two years as the head coach of Division-II Limestone College, which was a startup program that played its first college football season in 2014. Furrey also spent two years previously as head coach of Kentucky Christian University, an NAIA school, immediately after his NFL career had ended in 2010. The only time Furrey actually has coached wide receivers before this job was in three years as an assistant on Marshall's staff.

"I was actually out of school when he got hired and was thinking about transferring," said Vyncint Smith, who played receiver at Limestone. "Then we heard (Furrey) was getting hired and like two days later, he's calling me telling me I remind him of Isaac Bruce. That was the first time we talked and he made a huge impression on me right away. He's why I wanted to stay.

"We practiced hard. We worked in practice hard every single day. He changed the culture of the program completely. He changed our mindset. It wasn't hard for guys to buy into what he was selling by the time he left."

Furrey helped Smith develop into an NFL prospect with two strong seasons as the Saints' best deep threat. As an undrafted free agent following the 2018 NFL draft, he badly wanted to join Furrey in Chicago, knowing he might have a leg up in his quest to make an NFL roster.

But Smith also realized just how crowded the receiver situation was. His agent recommended to Smith that he sign with the more WR-needy Houston Texans, and he begrudgingly agreed.

"That was probably the hardest decision I had to make, not going to the Bears with him," Smith said. "He's the biggest reason I even have a chance at the NFL, improving my body, improving my routes, becoming a better all-around receiver. I owe him everything."

Smith has two lasting impressions of his college coach. One was watching Furrey make his assistant coaches work out with the team and with him during early-morning sessions. "The message was clear: If the head coach is in here working out early in the morning, and his coaches are in here, too," Smith said, "you better be in there when he is if you're a player."

The other impression was when Furrey decided to turn on the tape of himself with the Detroit Lions in 2006, purportedly as a coaching point of how to run his Mike Martz-steeped playbook at Limestone.

"I'm watching this guy run routes, and I am like, 'Oh, this dude could play!'" Smith said.

Martz was fired as head coach of the St. Louis Rams after the 2005 season and became the Lions' offensive coordinator the next year. The team signed Furrey, a Martz favorite, as a flier. All he did in his first season there was become the first established NFL veteran to go from zero catches one healthy season to 98 - second-most in the NFL that season - in league history.

Prior to that, Furrey had broken back into the NFL in 2003 with the Rams, working his way into the WR rotation in Martz's prolific offense. But when the Rams needed help at free safety in 2005, Furrey was the guy Martz called on. After a uniform switch from 82 to 25, Furrey was a DB - and not a bad one.

He started at free safety in Week 6 against the Indianapolis Colts (his first NFL start at any position) and for each of the next three games against the Saints, Jaguars and Seahawks, Furrey intercepted a pass. His first pick proved to be a game-winner: New Orleans was driving for what could have been the winning score in the final two minutes, down 21-17, at St. Louis when Furrey took back Aaron Brooks' pass 67 yards for a score.

Furrey spent three seasons with the Lions, and he became infamous for one expletive-laden postgame rant in 2007 after the team started out 6-2 that season. Things quickly soured, though, as the team won only one more game the rest of that season and became the league's first 0-16 squad ever in 2008.

That season ended in December following after effects related to a concussion, and his playing career was cut short a few years later following multiple concussions. He would be out of the league once Washington cut him after training camp in 2010.

Furrey's football nomad life continued with the three coaching stops over the next seven seasons. The Bears' job makes it his fourth position in eight years and the ninth team he's been on - as player and coach combined - since he and Nagy were Dragons teammates 16 years ago.

At the time, it would have been wild to think that Nagy could become an NFL head coach before the age of 40. Or that Furrey could start at two positions in the NFL as a player, then join Nagy's staff as a coach. Especially when you hear that Furrey and Nagy were roommates at the time, struggling just to get by, and that Furrey was always in Nagy's ear about throwing him more passes that season. But there's a reason Nagy tabbed him for this crucial role in Chicago.

"We were trying to make football a living then," Furrey told chicagobears.com in May, "and we have a lot of respect for each other."

Last week, Nagy loosened up the mood at practice by uncorking a few passes to Bears receivers during individual drills. Furrey was more impressed with his former quarterback's throwing this year than he was back in 2002.

"It looked as awful as it did when we played," Furrey joked. "(Nagy) might have thrown the ball better today than he did when we (were) playing."

So much has happened since then, and yet it appears Furrey brings with him the same fiery personality he did as an up-and-coming player just hoping to get a shot. His players might have needed some time to adjust to his style, but Furrey believes they're adapting just fine.

"They probably think it's pretty funny," Furrey said of his intensity. "I think early on they were probably thinking, 'Wow, we don't have to be this serious.' But I think they started realizing it's about their careers, not mine. I'm retired. Coach Nagy's retired. It's not about our careers. We're going to do what's best for your career.

"… The only time that we'll ever get disappointed or yell at you is (if) you're wasting that talent. I think some guys have responded positively with that because it's about them. … But when they know that you care about them and it's really about their careers and what can better them, I think you have a healthy relationship."