It’s been four weeks into the NFL season and it’s been quite the bumpy ride for Bears fans as head coach Matt Nagy has come under fire for his questionable decisions.
The Bears offense has been looking its worst in his tenure as head coach, which is the opposite of what they anticipated to happen.
It was supposed to take four years for the offense to be firing on all cylinders, but instead, they had their worst offensive performance in 40 years back in Week 3 against the Browns, prompting a change at play caller with offensive coordinator Bill Lazor taking over after Nagy fed Justin Fields to the wolves.
No matter the context, the fact that Nagy said, “We know what we’re doing” doesn’t really matter, because those are actual words that he said during that press conference after the loss, and his actions point a lot towards the contrary.
Nagy came under fire for his usage of Fields and his inability to build a game plan around him. Add to the fact that he refused to acknowledge on handing over play-calling duties to Lazor for a 2nd time and him choosing to make the starting QB situation a game-time decision, whether it be between Fields or Andy Dalton, for gamesmanship purposes.
It doesn’t help that Nagy was reluctant to begin the Fields era. The only reason Nagy started Fields was because Dalton was ruled out for Week 3 with a knee injury. Even if the Bears came off of a win against the Lions in Week 4, the offense has been looking so bad that it is making Marc Trestman look competent. It’s an exaggeration, but the offense is so dismal that Bears fans would take any other coach over Nagy.
The play calling duties being handed over to Lazor may be as part of the fact that Nagy admitted to the benefit of the hand and allowed him to focus on his job as head coach: “During the game, it was the most connected I’ve felt to all three phases.”
It was for the better, since there is no going back from Lazor as play caller, especially now that Fields is the starting QB going forward. Nagy said previously that in the past, he enjoys calling plays, but as many as he can attest to, he is not good at it. The best he can do is hand over the play calling duties and roll with his rookie QB.
The undeniable truth is that the Bears offense under Nagy is worse that it was under Trestman. If the season goes even worse than how it has been, then the Bears should make an exception to their policy against firing coaches during the season.
Nagy somehow had his job safe despite an epic meltdown against the Lions last season, but if the Bears do indeed make an exception to their policy, don’t expect him to be lucky this time around.
The Bears have scored seven offensive touchdowns in four games, but three of those touchdowns came against the Lions in Week 4.
During Nagy’s tenure, the Bears have scored the 10th-fewest points in the NFL, at 21.8 per game. Trestman had them at 23.9. The Jets and Washington averaged fewer yards per play than Nagy’s 4.97, well below John Fox’s 5.41 and Trestman’s 5.62. Both even outdid Nagy’s 36.8% success rate on 3rd downs. The Bears also have averaged the 6th-fewest yards per carry (4.02) and had the 12th-worst passer rating (87.2)—prompting a crucial question: What good have they done under Nagy?
The biggest difference between Nagy’s 29-22 record and Trestman’s 13-19 record is that Nagy benefitted from one of the NFL’s best defenses while Trestman had one of the worst.
The claim that Nagy made Mitch Trubisky into a solid starter that season was flawed. Trubisky’s best performance was his six-touchdown game against one of the NFL’s worst teams, and he had an 89 passer rating in his 13 other starts.
Even when the QBs change, the offense doesn’t. Nagy collaborated with general manager Ryan Pace to trade for Nick Foles, sign Dalton, and draft Fields. However, the Bears went down to 17.5 points per game in 2019 (29th in the NFL) and 23.3 last season (22nd) after a late playoff “push” where they faced some of the worst defenses in the NFL.
NFL teams averaged a record 25 points per game last season. When you count the playoffs, Nagy’s Bears have scored fewer than 25 points in 37 of his last 54 games. During the Bears’ Week 1 loss to the Rams, the Bears attempted just two passes traveling more than 10 yards through the air.
It’s not helping that Nagy is not getting Fields on the move enough. Fields has a cannon of an arm and is a mobile QB. But Bears fans are not seeing enough of that. Despite that, Nagy elected to have Fields largely operate within the pocket to start off their Week 3 game, but didn’t adjust his offense much from the unit that Dalton quarterbacked for the first game and a half. And that was evident.
To no surprise, the plan backfired. The O-line could not even protect the Browns’ pass rush, and because Fields was stationary in the pocket, he could not avoid the rush. He tried to escape the pressure further into the game, but he couldn’t find any running room. This is Nagy’s fault, because he didn’t even try to move the pocket or even get any bootlegs going. He didn’t even build any designed QB runs for the rookie.
When the Bears decided to abandon the run game during that Week 3 loss to the Browns, they were effectively rendering themselves one-dimensional. David Montgomery had seven first half carries in that game. He had three after halftime. He ended the game averaging 3.4 yards per carry, which matched Fields’ 3.4 yards per pass attempt.
It wasn’t much of a performance issue that kept Nagy from trusting Montgomery. Nor was the score. The Browns led for most of the 2nd half, but the lead didn’t get to more than 10 until early in the 4th, so the Bears had more chances to run the ball, and opted not to. Instead, they wanted Fields to make the plays, and the pressure got to him. Literally and figuratively.
That O-line allowed nine sacks in that game. Some of it was Fields’ responsibility, as he had moments where he failed to release the ball on time. The O-line deserved a part of the blame, too.
The unit has not blocked effectively throughout the season. Before Week 3, Pro Football Focus had them at 2nd-to-last league-wide in terms of run blocking. The struggles were evident. The pass blocking? Not great either. They allowed sacks on 8.6% of their plays before Week 3, the 6th-worst in the NFL, and have allowed Fields to be sacked 11 times in 6 quarters of action.
Part of that issue has to do with the personnel on the O-line. Jason Peters and Germain Ifedi have struggled immensely at tackle before finding success at guard last season. The only reason why they are the starting tackles are because their two O-line draft picks, Teven Jenkins and Larry Borom, are on IR. That thinned out the O-tackle room, which is lacking depth.
This rounds out the important decisions the Bears made during the offseason. They let go of their 2020 starting tackles—Charles Leno Jr. and Bobby Massie—in free agency. Leno was cut when the Bears drafted Jenkins while Massie’s option was declined before free agency.
All these problems have eroded Nagy’s greatest asset: His personality. Nagy has been a positive force inside Halas Hall, and he is an easy guy for whom to root. However, the high-octane enthusiasm has been lacking, and every meandering, empty answer about Fields, Dalton, and the offense chips to whatever confidence is left in Nagy.
There is a lot to criticize, but he has always conveyed steadiness, and the Bears really needed it when they were on a four-game losing streak in 2019 and a six-game skid last season. But he and Ryan Pace are still trying to develop Fields, the first legitimate QB the Bears have drafted. They have the belief that they have their QB of the future as Fields goes through his rookie moments before becoming a hopeful star QB.
But there is a noticeable difference between taking a player and selling development and taking a player and squandering grit. It is fair to question if Pace and Nagy are really wanting to develop Fields into a star QB while turning the Bears into a consistent contender they haven’t been in decades.
Even so, everything is in question, even when Nagy gave up the play-calling duties to Lazor last season, then took it back this offseason, and now won’t say who is calling the plays. Things aren’t going well, and he says, “We know that.” He continuously talks about the “plan” for Fields, but it’s not clear what that plan is.
In short, it should be time that the Bears move on from Nagy and Pace.
There is no defense to either of the two at their positions. In Nagy’s case, it’s about Fields’ development. He should have been fired after last season, but because the Bears made the playoffs last season, it felt as if the front office wanted to pretend that the team would be competitive.
Pace should have been fired when he stopped envisioning at what is best for the Bears and instead focused on what is best for him. To sum it up, the playoff window he opened up in the 2018 season was shut in 2019.
The Bears needed to create a transition plan at QB and start reloading the roster, but Pace instead pushed money into the future to try and put the best team on the field to get them in the playoffs so his job is kept safe. He may have built a strong defense, as he brought in every piece except for Kyle Fuller. He may have brought the franchise Fields. He may be arguably the best middle round evaluator in the league. However, his draft day trades constantly leave them short on draft capital, his poor cap management, and his neglect of the O-line is grounds for a change at GM.
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