Matt Nagy will leave behind a complicated legacy. He is not the worst head coach in Chicago Bears history. Not even close. At the same time, he may go down as the biggest disappointment. After a glittering 12-4 start to his tenure in 2018, it has been one long regression since then. An 8-8 season in 2019 with a four-game losing streak. An 8-8 season in 2020 with a six-game losing streak. Now a 6-11 record in 2021.
While many of the games this season can sum up Nagy in so many ways, Bears fans may never be able to forget his last one. Things started great. Chicago jumped to a 14-0 lead. Then things began falling apart in the second half. Minnesota came storming back with 27 points in the final two quarters. A Nagy Special that featured offensive miscues and a defensive meltdown. When looking at the comedy of errors though, one stat stood above the rest.
His work on 4th down.
For the game, the Bears faced a 4th down situation seven times and went for it. They went 1-of-6 in those situations. That in itself was bad enough. Yet what made it worse was that three of those 4th downs were passes including down 4th and 1s. Two of them resulted in sacks on Andy Dalton. The other was a game-sealing pick-six to Patrick Peterson in the 4th quarter. An incredible streak of stubbornness from a head coach that was always too cute for his own good.
When even David Montgomery is seen shaking his head on the sidelines in those situations, you know you screwed up. This has become the calling card of Matt Nagy during most of his coaching tenure. An overzealous love for passing the ball even when the situations dictate running it. Especially when you have one of the better running backs in the league. It is always the lack of common sense with him.
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Matt Nagy has nobody to blame but himself
There was an argument at the end of 2020 for the Bears to get rid of him. His offenses were still really bad and the team was clearly trending in the wrong direction. His game management was laughable at times. If not for a timely three-game win streak late in the season against bad opponents, he never would’ve made the playoffs. Yet George McCaskey still elected to keep him in place. Doing so because he believed in the coach’s character and leadership.
True to form though, Matt Nagy squandered that opportunity. He mismanaged the quarterback position from the start, committing to Andy Dalton so much that he refused to give rookie Justin Fields any snaps with the #1 offense in training camp. Then when Dalton gets hurt, people are shocked the kid struggled. This doesn’t even factor in how this coaching staff routinely failed to take advantage of what has been a top 10 running game.
Nagy was supposed to fix all this.
He was the offensive guru. The prized pupil of Andy Reid. In the end, all he did was extend an ugly streak of seven years with the Bears having a bottom half of the league offense. Ironically with his being some of the worst of that bunch. This served as another harsh lesson about how the organization conducted its entire interview process in the first place. Now they’re about to try again.
