Matt Nagy was hired by the Chicago Bears in 2018, and his career has been a roller coaster ever since.
Questions about the manager’s future have come to a head as the team nears the end of the 2021 season. But keep in mind that the organization has never fired a manager in the middle of a career. season before.
“Matt is a proven leader,” Pace said on Jan. 9, 2018. “He’s a winner. He is intelligent. He is innovative. He has a strong character. He has a big family and he shares the same passion for the game as me.
Matt Nagy was picked by the Bears for a reason. He matched the quarterback-centric profile GM Ryan Pace was looking for as part of quarterback Mitch Trubisky’s grand plan to get the franchise back on track after four straight seasons of double-digit losses.
Pace pointed out that Nagy’s leadership qualities replaced his expertise as a quarterback as the main factor in the decision to hire him for the first head coaching role of his career. Not that they are entirely separate.
Nagy had never been a head coach, and his NFL experience was limited to the Kansas City Chiefs’ last five regular season games in 2018 and their 22-21 home playoff loss to the Tennessee Titans. Coach Andy Reid gave Nagy the call duty because the offense was collapsing – the Chiefs then averaged 28.6 points per game in the five regular-season games he called up. But the Chiefs lost a 21-3 halftime lead in their playoff loss.
The Bears also interviewed then Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, Minnesota Vikings coordinators Pat Shurmur and George Edwards, and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback coach John DeFilippo. Nagy’s first game with the Bears – and it’s against the Green Bay Packers
Nagy’s early coaching career for the Bears plunged him into the midst of the NFL’s longest running rivalry. But this one stung – and Nagy and the fans who have worked frantically for the start of a new era won’t soon forget. They also shouldn’t do it after Randall Cobb scored on a 75-yard touchdown and ran with 2:13 left and the Bears found an unusual new way to lose to Aaron Rodgers.
The Bears had full control of Lambeau Field during Nagy’s domestic television debut. The crowd of 78,282 booed vigorously as the Packers made their way to the locker room at halftime. That’s because the Bears were leading 17-0, their biggest halftime lead over the Packers in any game – at home or away – since December 7, 1980. The Bears had failed. not spat out a lead and stifled a game like that in a terrible long time either. There’s no other way to describe what happened after they went from a 20-0 lead at the end of the third quarter to a 24-23 loss.
“We really have to have that finishing mindset,” Nagy said. “We can’t talk about it. We have to do it, everyone included.
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