Matt Nagy is hoping to avoid becoming another head coach that is ultimately done in by the Chicago Bears and their failure to find a true difference-maker at quarterback. It happened to many predecessors. Dave Wannstedt, Dick Jauron, Lovie Smith, Marc Trestman, and John Fox all fell victim to it. People keep asking the question. Why does this team continue to get it wrong? Over and over and over again.
Nagy knows. He has demonstrated a keen understanding almost from the start that the organization had a flawed approach to their evaluations. Too often they were focused on talent and not enough on two other traits that don’t get taken seriously enough. Football intelligence and mental toughness.
Here’s the thing. Chicago isn’t an easy city to play for.
The fans here are ravenous. They have zero tolerance for failure or lack of full commitment from their athletes. Their demands and expectations are high. One mistake and they will be on you. Relentlessly. That makes life difficult for an athlete. Especially a quarterback because everybody knows the success of the Bears often rests on how he does on Sundays.
Chicago is a Bears town. Don’t be fooled. The Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs, and White Sox all have their own niches in the city. Yet Chicago has been a football town far longer than anything else. This only puts the quarterback position under a bigger microscope. That is a lot of pressure. Only somebody with standout mental toughness can handle something like that.
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Then there is the other aspect. Being a good QB isn’t about being smart. Plenty of smart guys have played the position and failed. Football intelligence is different. Oliver Luck, father to former All-Pro QB Andrew Luck had a great quote about it a few years ago.
“Football intelligence to me is situational awareness. The variables in football are so many. Every play is a decision and you do it at full speed. Life involves more thought.”
That is the essence of being a quarterback. They have to absorb information, process it at breakneck speed, and use it to their advantage all why 11 big, fast defenders try to ruin his day. In their many years, Chicago only had one quarterback who could handle that. It was Jim McMahon.
Matt Nagy, as a former QB, understands this reality
There is a reason why guys like Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning lasted so long in the NFL. It’s not because any of them were the best athletes. Not even close. It’s because they were all relentless students of the game who obsessed over details and could process information at a high level. McMahon did that too. His problem was he could never stay healthy.
When looking at the Bears during their quarterback evaluations since 2018, it’s clear Nagy has adjusted their parameters to fit those priorities. Gardner Minshew was hardly the most talented QB in the 2019 class. Yet the Bears reportedly liked him. Why? He was average-sized with an average arm. Yet he had an insatiable work ethic and saw the game at high speeds. Sure enough, he threw 22 TDs to just six interceptions his rookie year.
It’s not a coincidence the Bears wanted Brady when he was a free agent.
Matt Nagy didn’t care he was 43-years old. The future Hall of Famer could still process defenses as well as anybody. Now he’s a Super Bowl champion for the seventh time. Curious why Chicago wasn’t as heavily involved in Carson Wentz as rumors claimed? Probably because he has a reputation for being mentally weak and resistant to hard coaching.
Look at QBs they’re tied to recently. Deshaun Watson, Russell Wilson, and Derek Carr. Sure it’s primarily because they’re all good players. It is also because all of those guys are unshakeable. Add more pressure on them, they just play better. That is the quarterback Nagy is searching for. The quarterback Chicago constantly failed to find for the past three decades.
People can accuse him of sabotaging Mitch Trubisky and not giving him a real chance. The reality is Matt Nagy wasn’t going to compromise his expectations at quarterback for anybody. He put a lot of pressure on the kid. When it became clear Trubisky lacked one of those two critical traits (football intelligence in this case), he knew it was time to move on.
Time will tell if he can find that special somebody who has both.