No team steers the course of the Chicago Bears like the Green Bay Packers. If you want to be good in this division, you have to beat them. It’s a simple fact of life. Look back over franchise history. If coaches don’t beat the Packers, they aren’t around long. Dave Wannstedt was 1-11 against them. Dick Jauron was 2-8 against them. Marc Trestman was 1-3 against them. John Fox was 1-5 against them. None of those coaches lasted more than six seasons on a sideline for the Bears. Matt Nagy? He’s now 1-5 as well.
The only ones to successfully do so since George Halas were Mike Dikta and Lovie Smith. Ditka was 15-5 against them and Smith was 8-11. After Sunday’s loss at Soldier Field, Nagy is now in ugly territory against Green Bay. If that weren’t bad enough, the performances are getting worse. Chicago didn’t just lose to the Packers this year. They were blown out both times. Nagy’s offense turned it over five times in those two games.
To say nothing of the timid game plans and erratic play calling.
Green Bay always appears two or three steps ahead of him. That is where the problem lay. It’s understood the Packers have Aaron Rodgers. Beating a Hall of Fame QB is never easy. Yet Nagy always seems to make it look even more daunting than it is. His teams don’t play their best football in these games. That is perhaps the most infuriating thing of all. The Packers bring out the worst in him.
That shouldn’t be the reality for a Bears head coach. Yet it is. Just review the results.
Subscribe to the BFR podcast and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
- Coughing up a 17-0 lead in 2018
- Scoring 16 points total in two games in 2019
- Being outscored 76-41 in 2020
Nagy does just fine feasting on bad teams. Yet when he’s confronted by good ones that are well-coached? He’s rarely up to the challenge.
The fate of Matt Nagy remains a mystery
He’s terrible against the Packers and has put a mediocre team on the field for two years in a row. Yet he also makes the playoffs for the second time in three years. Albeit on a technicality. Is that enough to save his job? Ian Rapoport of NFL Network believes so. He said his sources indicated that the head coach should be safe for next season. However, fellow insider Jay Glazer wasn’t so certain. He indicated a lot would depend on whether they beat Green Bay and how far they went in the playoffs.
Well, they’ve lost to the Packers again. So it’s fair to say the color around Matt Nagy of late is hardly rose-tinted. That means this upcoming game in New Orleans could be pivotal for him. If the Saints make the Bears one-and-done, could that be enough to still get the head coach fired? Only team chairman George McCaskey can answer that and he’s not talking.
Fans will have to wait for them another week.
Somehow beating the Saints would obviously cement his return. A loss and maybe even another blowout? It’ll be mighty difficult for ownership to stare into the cameras the day after that game and declare their intent to keep him as head coach. Then again nothing should surprise people with this organization anymore.