Finding success is always difficult in the NFL. Yet one could argue it’s much harder to handle success once you’ve found it. Plenty of teams have gone from bad to good for one year. Far fewer are able to maintain any consistent winning after that initial surge. This is because it’s a different mentality going from the hunter to the hunted. The Chicago Bears haven’t always handled this lesson well in the past. Matt Nagy learned that the hard way.

The head coach has a track record of being honest on almost everything. Both with the media and with his players. When it comes to the 2018 season? He’s proud of what that team accomplished. Everything was clicking. The offense could score. The defense was elite. By the time the playoffs arrived, they felt there wasn’t a team in the NFL they couldn’t beat. During an interview with White Sox legend Frank Thomas on Hangin’ With Hurt, Nagy admitted that if not for the fateful Double Doink loss to Philadelphia, that team would’ve gone all the way.

“We felt like we were going to win the Super Bowl. You felt it, we were going to win the Super Bowl. The Rams went to the Super Bowl that year, and we got after the Rams pretty good at Soldier Field, 15-6. It was a good football game. And it didn’t happen.”

As tough as that way, the bigger regret for Nagy is what followed.

Despite their rough exit from the playoffs, expectations going into 2019 were sky-high. The defense was bringing back most of its starters. Mitch Trubisky was coming off a Pro Bowl alternate season, having finished that Eagles game strong. There was no reason to think the team couldn’t make another run in short order. Then on opening night, they fell to Green Bay in a 10-3 clunker, which set the tone for a brutal 8-8 season. Nagy fully admits that both he and the team didn’t handle the expectations well at all.

“When we went 12-4 and won the NFC North, man, it was rockin’. It was awesome. Our players believed in what we were doing, and we won games because they believed in each other. Going into 2019, there were these expectations from everybody, from the league, from the city, from our own players, and I think we didn’t handle that real well, including myself. And we didn’t play as well. We went 8-8 and didn’t make the playoffs.”

This is hardly an uncommon reality for young head coaches. Especially ones who experience success right out of the gate. Sean Payton went 10-6 his first year in New Orleans in 2006, reaching the NFC Championship. Then he went 7-9 and 8-8 the next two years. Sometimes a coach and team need to learn that every year is different. Simply expecting to be good means nothing. Only hard work and effort determine success.

Matt Nagy has chased redemption ever since

He’d hoped 2020 was going to be that year. It certainly started out that way. The Bears went 5-1 and were building some serious momentum. However, ongoing quarterback issues and a mounting list of injuries started to derail them. Enough to where a six-game losing streak almost sank their season. Nagy though viewed that experience as a positive. It helped him to learn what it’s like to coach through serious adversity. Was he going to let the team fold or have them fight back?

Chicago rallied, winning three of their final four games to sneak into the playoffs. It wasn’t pretty but it was enough. All of this experience has been invaluable to Matt Nagy. He’s becoming a better coach because of it. He understands how to deal with adversity and success in equal measure. The trick will be applying all of those lessons towards the ultimate goal of bringing this team a championship.

Does he finally have the critical missing piece?

That what many hope for with Justin Fields. The 11th overall pick is a supremely talented quarterback. It comes down to whether he can grasp the speed of the NFL game and whether Nagy can develop him into the player he should be. The head coach seems eager for the challenge. If he succeeds? Then those demons of 2018 will finally fade away.