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LAKE FOREST Richard Dent Color Rush Jersey , Ill. (AP) — The Chicago Bears rode a dominant defense to the NFC North championship in a breakout season. They hope to keep it going with a new coordinator.The Bears hired former Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano to replace Vic Fangio on Friday, hoping he can help them build on what they accomplished this season.Pagano inherits one of the NFL's stingiest defenses after Fangio left to take the Denver Broncos‘ head coaching job. He will get to work with one of the league's best pass rushers in Khalil Mack as well as two other All-Pros in cornerback Kyle Fuller and safety Eddie Jackson. Pagano led Indianapolis to a 53-43 record and two AFC South championships from 2012 to 2017. He was forced to take a leave of absence early in his first season to get treated for leukemia. With offensive coordinator Bruce Arians serving as interim head coach, the Colts went 9-3 in his absence after a 1-2 start.They won 11 games and made the playoffs in each of Pagano's first three seasons before injuries to quarterback Andrew Luck took a toll. Before taking the Indianapolis job, he spent four seasons under John Harbaugh in Baltimore — as secondary coach from 2008 to 2010 and defensive coordinator in 2011, when the Ravens went 12-4 and ranked third in total defense.Pagano was a consultant for the NFL last season."He is a great teacher with an aggressive mentality that fits our style of football," coach Matt Nagy said. "He is a man of high character and has a passion for the game that will no doubt add to the culture we have already started building at Halas Hall."The Bears went 12-4 in their first season under Nagy after four straight last-place finishes and made the playoffs for the first time in eight years. They finished with their best record since the 2006 team went 13-3 and reached the Super Bowl.The season ended on a gut-wrenching note when Cody Parkey's potential winning field goal hit the left upright and crossbar in the closing seconds of a 16-15 wild-card loss to the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.In four seasons, Fangio helped transform a defense that ranked among the worst in franchise history. Now, he finally has a head coaching job after 32 years as an assistant in the NFL.Like Fangio, Pagano has experience running 3-4 defenses. He also figures to have plenty of autonomy, with Nagy focused on the development of the offense and quarterback Mitchell Trubisky.Chicago already had a top-10 defense when general manager Ryan Pace swung a blockbuster trade for Mack just before the start of the season. That move showed just how serious the Bears were about making a jump after going 14-34 in three seasons under former coach John Fox.The defense jumped to a different level with Mack drawing double teams, Fuller and Jackson emerging, and Pro Bowl defensive end Akiem Hicks wreaking havoc. Linebacker Roquan Smith showed star potential after being drafted with the No. 8 overall pick. Linebacker Leonard Floyd and defensive tackle Eddie Goldman had solid seasons Dan Hampton Jersey , and it all added up to this.Chicago led the NFL with 36 takeaways and 27 interceptions, a huge change after three straight years with a franchise-worst eight interceptions. The Bears gave up a league-low 17.7 points per game and 1,280 yards rushing — a franchise-low for a 16-game season. They also ranked third in total defense and tied for third with 50 sacks.Mack led the team with 12 1/2 sacks and tied for third in NFL with six forced fumbles. And Fuller tied for the league lead with seven sacks. The January hiring carousel of the NFL marches on with position coaches. On Monday, the Bears announced that they have hired Ted Monachino to be their new outside linebackers coach. Monachino, 52, was set to take over as Kansas State’s defensive coordinator for the 2019 season as a recent hire. He evidently could not pass up working with Bears defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano again: a man he goes way back with.Monachino previously served as a Pagano disciple when he was Colts defensive coordinator under the then head coach from 2016-2017. Monachino’s Indianapolis defense was nothing to write home about as it was a paltry 24th and 31st in DVOA in both seasons, respectively. Fortunately, he won’t be coordinating the defense in Chicago quite obviously. Where the Bears’ new outside linebackers coach really made his hay was with the Ravens as their linebackers coach from 2010-2015. It is there where Monachino first connected with Pagano, who was the Ravens’ secondary coach from 2008-2010 before eventually being promoted to defensive coordinator in 2011. Thanks in large part to Monachino’s individual guidance, players like edge rusher Terrell Suggs amassed 88 quarterback hits, 70 tackles for loss, and 49 sacks over the course of those six seasons (Suggs only featured in 63 games due to injury). A 2011 Defensive Player of the Year Award for Suggs was the cherry on top of a marvelous stint of play. Inside linebacker C.J. Mosley https://www.thebearsfanshop.com/Brian-Urlacher-Jersey , a Baltimore 2014 first-round pick and another Monachino prodigy, was also voted a Second-Team All-Pro and Pro Bowler as a rookie. The four-time Second-Team All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowler in Mosley has since evolved into one of the NFL’s premier inside linebackers. What this boils down to is some of Baltimore’s premier players outside of the customary Ray Lewis and Ed Reed shining both due to talent and fantastic coaching. Monachino gets to start anew in the NFL with Khalil Mack and Leonard Floyd as his primary responsibility. It’s quite the situation to walk into and be welcomed back with into the pro ranks. After a blockbuster trade that sent him to Chicago from the Raiders, Mack finished the 2018 season with 12.5 sacks: third most in a single season in Bears history, as both the top campaigns are held by Hall of Famer Richard Dent. Mack, inarguably one of this generation of football’s best defenders, has the challenge to take his game to an even higher level under Monachino ... if that’s possible. Whoever was going to be his position coach, Mack was probably going to be great anyway because he’s, well, a great player. Where Monachino’s Bears hire gets far more interesting is with Floyd, especially when considering that Mack is an all-worldly talent that can excel with anyone’s mentorship. The Bears’ 2016 first-round pick, Floyd has just 15.5 sacks over 38 starts in three seasons. While he came on extremely hot to close this past year, enough to earn his fifth-year option Leonard Floyd Color Rush Jersey , you’d be hard-pressed to say Floyd has reached his potential as a defender when it comes to production. Injuries have curtailed a good deal of what Floyd’s been capable of: 2018 was the first year he played all 16 games, and that was with one healthy hand to start the year. General manager Ryan Pace, head coach Matt Nagy, and Pagano are expecting big things out of Floyd moving forward if the Bears are going to continue to evolve as a championship contender. If Floyd can be the dominant force he was over the course of the second half of the 2018 season for an entire year alongside a game wrecker like Mack, this Bears defense will be in fantastic shape. It’ll be on Monachino to make sure the Bears’ prized defensive piece in Mack continues to swallow offensive game plans whole, and to help one of their rising foundational blocks in Floyd finally reach his full potential. Robert is the Editor-in-chief of The Blitz Network, the managing editor of Windy City Gridiron, and has a host of bylines for many fine publications. You can follow him on Twitter @RobertZeglinski.