The Chicago Bears are 7-7. Despite a six-game losing streak they are still somehow in the playoff hunt with two games to play. This after a couple of critical wins over the Houston Texans and Minnesota Vikings. Such a turn of events has at least quieted the masses in their calls for the heads of Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace. Something they no doubt are grateful for.
It seemed almost like a foregone conclusion the head coach and GM would be gone. After going 12-4 their first year together, they saw the team regress to 8-8 in 2019. Then they watched a 5-1 start to 2020 get squandered in less than two months. Nobody could survive such an epic collapse. Yet to their credit, they’ve soldiered through it. The team continues to play hard and a number of young players are starting to step up.
Has it been enough to truly save them though?
Some believe this is the case. With the offense playing better and the team likely to finish at least 8-8, a lot of fans are convinced the McCaskey family will give Nagy and Pace one more year. Maybe even with Mitch Trubisky at quarterback. However, Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune had an interesting comment about the situation in his latest mailbag.
“If I had to select only one at this moment who has the best chance of working for the franchise in 2021, I would say Nagy. I’m not ruling out the return of two of the three or all three, however. Let’s see how this plays out and try to avoid, as best we can, the rush to judgment that can cloud things in a society quick to wrap its arms around hot takes.”
This continues to feed into the growing narrative that the Bears may decide to break up their current power structure. The idea being Pace would be fired after the season and a new GM brought in with a simple caveat. Spend 2021 evaluating Nagy. If it doesn’t seem like it will work, then go ahead and find your own head coach.
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Matt Nagy would be the third man to experience this since 2000
It’s a tactic the Bears have used twice before in the past. In 2001, they hired Jerry Angelo as GM in the summer. It was the third season for Dick Jauron as head coach. Angelo had free reign to evaluate him. The Bears ended up going 13-3 that season and Jauron wound up staying on two more years before he was fired in 2004.
Ironically his replacement would encounter the same scenario eight years later. When Angelo was fired in 2012, Phil Emery replaced him. The McCaskeys requested he take a year to see if a relationship with head coach Lovie Smith would work. Despite going 10-6 that season, the Bears missed the playoffs. Smith was fired and replaced by Marc Trestman. So Matt Nagy would hardly be the first to experience this.
The reasoning for it is pretty straightforward.
Like him or not, Nagy still has a winning record overall as Bears head coach. They should at least finish 8-8 this season, which means he’ll have never posted a losing record in any season. Combine that with a contract that still has two guaranteed years left? Ownership just won’t feel like they have enough evidence to justify parting ways with the guy.
Pace on the other hand? He’s had six years with the team. His quarterback gamble in 2017 failed to pay off despite Trubisky’s recent run of nice games. There were other high-profile misses as well including the bad contract handed to Robert Quinn. Even a winning record might not save him from those past mistakes.