Matt Nagy is the most successful Chicago Bears head coach of the past decade. As complicated a figure as he is these days, nobody can argue that he got better results than most. Still, his tenure ended in disappointment after starting with such promise. Winning the division in 2018 felt like a sign that the Bears were ready to go after a Super Bowl. Within two years, it became evident he was losing the locker room. People have struggled to figure out how things went so wrong so quickly.
This doesn’t boil down to just one mistake. Head coaches get fired for multiple miscalculations, on and off the field. However, every dismissal has what you would call a flashpoint. It was a moment where the perspective of them among the locker room starts shifting. Based on new details shared by Mike Silver of The Athletic, it appears that the moment for Nagy came in 2019, during the team’s gut-wrenching loss in London to the Oakland Raiders.
An incident in the locker room at halftime is what sparked it.
The previous night, on the first Sunday of October 2019, the Bears had suffered a 24-21 defeat to the Oakland Raiders. Nagy, normally upbeat and composed, had gone on an all-time tirade. His team trailing 17-0 at halftime, Nagy became unhinged in the locker room, directing his ire at his offensive linemen and loudly questioning their manhood. “You’re playing like a bunch of (wimps),” Nagy screamed, vaulting over a previously uncrossed line.
Not surprisingly, the linemen didn’t take it well. “I was one more insult away from pushing past our head of security and walking the streets of London, in uniform, trying to find the best pub possible to watch the second half,” recalls Kyle Long, then a Bears starting guard. “I don’t use the ‘Q’ word (quit) lightly, but I was close.”…
…“On the flight out,” Long says, “we were taking pictures like kids on Snapchat. On the way back, we were going to a wake. For nine hours, I challenge you not to make eye contact with the person across from you. I had to stare at my knees. It was torture.”
Remembers Nagy: “They had those seats that go in opposite directions. Nine hours of staring at each other. Nine hours of me glaring at them. We didn’t talk. I was pissed and they were pissed. That was just a weird moment. London’s dreary. The food stunk. You’re hangry. And (at halftime) I just lost my f—— mind.”
Matt Nagy was never the same after that game.
His magic touch was gone. Going into that contest, the Bears were 15-5 under his direction. He was 19-26 after it. Chicago lost four of the next five games after returning from London, crippling any hopes they had of returning to the playoffs. Matt Nagy started panicking. He alienated quarterback Mitch Trubisky, overhauled his coaching staff, and did everything possible to regain control of the locker room. While players never outright rebelled, it always felt like their respect for him dipped considerably over the course of 2019. Now we know why.
Shouting at players for not playing hard or making mistakes is one thing. Taking out your personal frustrations on them with insults is something else. This isn’t 40 years ago, when coaches could get away with such behavior. This breed of athlete doesn’t take such criticisms at face value. They take it personally. One has to wonder if things might’ve been different had Matt Nagy kept is composure during that halftime speech.
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