Bears add Bill McGovern to defensive staff, promote Bill Shuey

The Bears added two more defensive coaches to defensive coordinator Sean Desai’s staff.

The team announced the hirings of Bill McGovern as inside linebackers coach and Bill Shuey as outside linebackers coach Friday. McGovern most recently worked as a defensive analyst at the University of Nebraska. Shuey was promoted from within the Bears organization after serving as assistant linebackers coach. Shuey has been on head coach Matt Nagy’s staff for three seasons.

McGovern replaces Mark DeLeone, who left Chicago for a job with the Detroit Lions. Shuey takes over for Ted Monachino, who reportedly is taking a job with the Atlanta Falcons.

McGovern has 36 years of coaching experience, including seven in the NFL as the linebackers coach with the Philadelphia Eagles (2013 to 2015) and the New York Giants (2016 to 2019). He was a college defensive coordinator on two different occasions at Boston College (2009 to 2012) and at Massachusetts (1992 to 1993).

Like McGovern, Shuey also previously worked for the Eagles in various roles from 2001 to 2010 under head coach Andy Reid. The last three of those seasons overlapped with Nagy’s tenure in Philadelphia. After stints at the college level at West Chester University (2012 and 2013) and Widener University (2014 to 2017), Shuey was hired by the Bears as a defensive quality control assistant in 2018.

The Bears now have hired three defensive position coaches to Desai’s staff, after announcing Chris Rumph as defensive line coach Thursday. Rumph, McGovern and Shuey will join forces with secondary coach Deshea Townsend. The Bears still are in the market for a running backs coach and probably one or two additional assistants.