The Chicago Bears are 4-1. Their best start in eight years. Thursday night may have been their most impressive win in a long time. Facing the ageless Tom Brady and a surging 3-1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team, the Bears delivered a gutty, determined performance to steal a 20-19 victory. Players were understandably thrilled. Yet Matt Nagy was not.
At least not entirely. The Bears head coach appeared before the media scant hours after the emotional win. No doubt he stayed up late to review the film. Based on his answers to the questions that follow, he was not happy. Why?
Put simply, his frustrations with the offense have reached a new level.
“I thought offensively, just looking at it, and you start wondering about the sloppiness, and where things are at, and how to get to where we need to go,” he said. “I just look back after watching the tape, and the details right now in this offense are not there. So that’s our job as coaches: to make sure that we get these freakin’ details right. It’s as simple as that.”
One can understand. Nagy is an offensive guy. He wants to score points. Yet the offense continues to get in their own way with either penalties, inaccurate passes, or dropped balls. He relentlessly hammered home the word “detailed” to explain the issue.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
“But darn it, when you play in this offense, you better be freaking detailed. And we’re not a detailed football team on offense right now. And we need to get that back.”
Matt Nagy recognizes the opportunity developing
The thing to remember about Nagy is he’s not dumb. He understands what the Bears have. That’s a dominant defense that is capable of holding just about any offense in check. The problem is it’s hard to win in this era of NFL football without being able to score points. Thus far the Bears struggled to score against some of the worst defenses in the league and were absolutely manhandled by the powerhouse Colts.
If this team wants to start thinking big about a Super Bowl, they’re going to need more from the offense. That will require better execution at every level. Better blocking, sharper routes, good hands, and accurate throws from the quarterback. One can imagine Nagy will start getting on guys’ cases a lot more often moving forward.