After the Chicago Bears gave an embarrassing effort in front of a national audience, head coach Matt Nagy sounded like a man who thinks he’s on the hot seat.
Well, things went from bad to worse for the Chicago Bears. They went into their bye week with a four-game losing streak. They came out of the bye with an embarrassing 41-25 loss to their division rivals, the Green Bay Packers. It was the first time since Week 16 in the 2016 season against Washington that the Bears allowed 40+ points in a game.
With the team’s struggles extending to the defense, everyone’s seat is warming up. General manager Ryan Pace assembled this team (and he refused to make the moves before the trade deadline to improve the roster) and head coach Matt Nagy runs the team on the field. Both of them are failing to do their jobs and since the double-doink in the playoffs, things have gone down in a bad way.
It was surprising that the defense looked so bad against the Packers in Week 12. The Packers marched down the field right from the first drive. They scored a touchdown on five of their seven drives. To be fair, the unit was without Akiem Hicks, who hurt his hamstring in Week 10 against the Minnesota Vikings.
Nagy has no answers and now lashes out
After letting the loss marinate overnight, Nagy met with the press to discuss it. He seemed like a man who knew his time in Chicago is tenuous. He doesn’t have any answers for what is happening and it shows. In his press conference, he tried to explain what he meant when he said the players needed to wake their tails up and how they needed to have more personal pride.
Nagy then went off the rails when he attacked his defense.
That’s not who we are as a defense. That can’t happen. And our defensive guys know that. You have to be able to shut them down and not allow 16 first downs in 36 plays, 5 of 6 on third downs and three touchdown drives.
They need to understand where we’re coming from with that and how we feed off of them as a defense.
Yes, the defense struggled on Sunday. This is a defense, however, that is the reason why Nagy still has a job. It may also be the reason for him keeping his job beyond this season.
In Nagy’s tenure in Chicago, the Bears won an incredible eight games in which they scored 20 points or less. That’s the most of any team. Also, of the 43 games Nagy has coached, the defense allowed 20 points or less 26 times. Of those games, the Bears won 21 of them.
Lay off the defense and concentrate on the offense
Everyone knows the defense had a bad game. That bad game, however, is the exception and not the rule. The main problem on this Chicago Bears team is the offensive performance of the offense. Mitchell Trubisky took over for an injured Nick Foles. Trubisky looked like the same struggling quarterback we saw in his previous 41 game sample. His mechanics were off and he threw into double and triple coverage. Additionally, he committed three turnovers, two interceptions and a fumble lost.
Nagy is supposed to be this offensive wizard. That hasn’t happened in his time in Chicago, though. The offense ranks near the bottom of every offensive category. He needs to concentrate on what’s happening on offense and not publicly dressing down the defense. Whatever he had to say about the defense should’ve been said to defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano or addressed in the locker room.
When someone lashes out the way Nagy did it shows the mounting pressure is having an effect. If Nagy continues this, then this situation will get worse in the next five weeks.
