The end result wasn’t what people wanted, but it was a lot better than the way it was going before. The Chicago Bears looked absolutely lifeless in the first half against the Oakland Raiders on Sunday. They were physically dominated for 30 minutes, falling behind 17-0. Most people were convinced the team had forgotten to get off the flight to London. They came in unprepared and overconfident and were paying for it. Some head coaches may have tried to offer encouragement. Matt Nagy was not one of them.
For all the talk about family and having fun, the Bears head coach is a competitor. He does not accept losing. So when he saw his team perform like that in the first half, he did not arrive in the locker room in, shall we say, a favorable mood. Frankly, he was pissed off and knew that a pat on the shoulder pads wasn’t going to get the message across this time. They needed a swift kick in the ass and apparently it was an effective one based on the results that followed.
Chicago came out and scored 21 unanswered points in the 3rd quarter to take a 21-17 lead. This despite having a backup quarterback and banged-up defense that looked sluggish most of the day. They came close to putting it away late before a couple of costly mistakes allowed Oakland to escape with a 24-21 win. Nagy told Mark Potash of the Chicago Sun-Times and others after the game that he knew Dr. Jekyll wasn’t being heard at that point.
So he switched to Mr. Hyde.
“We have a happy-go-lucky attitude around the building. We have fun,” Nagy said. “Every now and then, though, you need to be able to show a dark side. And they need to see that and feel that. It just so happened that yesterday was one of those days that they felt it. I know they felt it.”
Matt Nagy has his critics but the man knows coaching
People have come out of the woodwork rather fast declaring Nagy a fraud. He’s a bad coach who is ruining a great team. That sort of knee-jerk reaction is expected after losses. Fans aren’t known for their logical thinking when emotions run high. Yet the fact remains that Nagy is a good football coach. Many in that situation would’ve folded their tents and gone home. Maybe they would’ve gotten a touchdown or two to make it look more presentable but that’s about it.
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Nagy refused to accept that. He never believes his team is out of a game. They fought back and came tantalizingly close to pulling it out. Much of that because he understood the moment called for him to change his motivational tactics. Good coaches do that. Is his offense working at the moment? No. That needs fixing. Yet to use that as the sole reason the guy is a bad coach isn’t fair. He lost a tough game on the road. It happens. His job isn’t to lament over it anymore. It’s to pick everybody up and get ready for the next game.
