The Chicago Bears have a pivotal football game ahead of them on Sunday. Their rival Green Bay Packers are back in town. Everybody knows the story. This is a team the Bears struggle to beat. Just four wins between 2010 and 2020. That should paint a clear picture of how irritated fans are. It should not be this lopsided, but it is. What will happen if the Bears lose this one too? Nobody wants to find out. Especially Matt Nagy.
The head coach has managed to hide one key fact about him beneath his atrocious offense and overall ability to narrowly avoid losing records. Among all the things he’s accomplished in Chicago, the one that can’t be ignored is his record against the Packers. It isn’t good. Quite the opposite in fact. He is 1-5 currently against that team up north. For an idea how bad that is, here is the record the other division rival head coach had going into 2021.
- Mike Zimmer: 5-6-1
- Matt Patricia: 2-4
- Matt Nagy: 1-5
When Patricia outcoaches you at something? That is telling.
What makes it so much worse is the myriad of different ways they’ve found to lose too. Coughing up a 20-3 lead to lose 24-23. Losing at home on opening night 10-3. Having a chance to tie the game on a crazy string of laterals in the final seconds only to have a rookie tight end fumble the ball just yards from the goal line. It seems like Nagy’s team just can’t execute well enough when playing Green Bay.
His only win came in 2018 when the Bears clinched the division. Even then they came close to almost coughing up the lead late before Eddie Jackson intercepted Aaron Rodgers. What happens if Chicago can’t rise to the occasion yet again? Well, they’ll be 3-3 with the defending champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers on deck. Nagy will drop to 1-6 in his career against the Packers. It’s hard not to feel like this game holds immense importance for the head coach.
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Matt Nagy has to do something he hasn’t done to this point
Score points. Think about this. In the six games he has coached against the Packers, the Bears have scored more than 20 points just three times. It is difficult to beat a guy like Rodgers when all he basically has to do is score three touchdowns in order to win. So it probably doesn’t bode well that the Bears have managed to score three touchdowns just once in five games this season. For all the talk about how well the defense has played, few people are buying that alone will work. It hasn’t for years now.
Matt Nagy has to get the ball in the end zone. That means running it well and finding a way to help rookie Justin Fields get in a rhythm. The Packers are wide open for some big plays. They’re already down their best pass rusher and their best cornerback. There are few excuses not to hit some big plays on them. To say nothing of their leaky run defense. This is a winnable game. At least on paper.
Yet with this head coach? It feels like a monumental challenge.
Nagy would like everybody to think he is still on stable ground. That won’t be the case if he drops his sixth game in seven tries to the Packers. He should know based on Bears history. Losing by itself is bad enough. Losing consistently to Green Bay? That will get you fired pretty fast.