Chicago Bears hire former Chiefs inside linebackers coach

Matt Nagy has hired away a former member of the Kansas City Chiefs coaching staff with the news that Mark Deleone will join the Chicago Bears staff.

The Kansas City Chiefs have lost their second linebackers coach in less than a week with the news that Mark Deleone, responsible for inside linebackers last season, has taken the same position with the Chicago Bears.

Matt Nagy, head coach of the Bears, will have plenty of familiarity with Deleone after the pair spent time together on the Chiefs coaching staff. Nagy was the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs before being hired away by the Bears last offseason. Nagy enjoyed a nice 12-win season in his first year in Chicago and should have even won his first-ever playoff game as a head coach if not for an incredible unlucky field goal attempt by Cody Parkey that failed after hitting the goalposts twice against the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card Round.

Delone has served with the Chiefs ever since Andy Reid first arrived. Deleone was a defensive quality control coach for two seasons before being named assistant linebackers coach from 2015 to 2017. At that point, defensive coordinator Bob Sutton split the linebacking corps into two separate groups and Deleone was tasked with the inside linebackers in 2018.

The Chiefs recently hired Steve Spagnuolo to serve as Sutton’s replacement after six years in Kansas City. It’s unclear who Spagnuolo will retain from Sutton’s staff, but both linebacker spots have now cleared with Deleone’s exit to Chicago and Mike Smith’s departure for Green Bay. So far, those are the only changes to the Chiefs coaching staff since the announcement of Spagnuolo.