Getty Head coach Matt Nagy and the Chicago Bears have lost two straight.
Back in 2018, in his first season as head coach of the Chicago Bears, Matt Nagy won Coach of the Year after leading the team to a 12-4 record and its first playoff appearance since 2011.
The Bears have gone 8-8 in each of Nagy’s two seasons since. They have made the playoffs twice in his tenure, losing both times while averaging 12.0 points a game in those two losses. Nagy was brought to Chicago to help develop quarterback Mitch Trubisky, but that didn’t happen, and Trubisky is now the backup in Buffalo.
When the Bears drafted Justin Fields with the 11th overall pick, many assumed the team would put the rookie QB in the best possible position to succeed. Instead, Nagy has been criticized for hindering Fields’ progress by not building the offense around the young QBs strengths:
For some reason, the #Bears are limiting the amount of times Justin Fields is running play-action passes. The "Why" behind that?
Well, only Matt Nagy knows …
But just add this to the growing and never-ending list of problems with this Bears offense. https://t.co/njyF5Kq7jU
— Nicholas Moreano (@NicholasMoreano) October 25, 2021
After their Week 7 thrashing at the hands of Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Bears suffered their third loss of 20 or more points this season, losing 38-3. The loss reminded some close to the team of another moment in not-so-distant team history — and it’s not a good sign for Nagy’s future in Chicago.
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Bears Brass Will Remember This at Season’s End, Says Team Insider
After Chicago got handed a 24-14 beat down by its oldest rival, the Green Bay Packers, Week 6 — one that was punctuated by Aaron Rodgers telling fans in the stands at Soldier Field how much he owns them — it didn’t seem like it could get much worse. Then, Brady and the Bucs danced all over them, with a swarming defense that forced five turnovers out of Fields. The 35-point deficit was the most lopsided loss of the Nagy era.
Bears insider Adam Jahns of The Athletic thinks it was a loss that, especially following the Green Bay game, will resonate with team chairman George McCaskey and president/CEO Ted Phillips.
“Last year, Nagy successfully navigated his team out of a six-game losing streak and through a quarterback controversy, albeit one he helped create, to advance to the postseason. He’s never had a losing season. But Nagy’s ability to keep things together doesn’t matter as much as it once did if Fields isn’t playing well and the offense isn’t scoring,” Jahns wrote.
Jahns then revealed why the loss will likely still be fresh in the minds of Bears brass at the end of the season.
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Nagy’s Recent Losses Bring Bad Déjà Vu
Jahns thinks the back-to-back losses to Brady and Rodgers are reminiscent of another moment in team history involving another notoriously unpopular ex-Bears coach: Marc Trestman.
“It wasn’t competitive; it was embarrassing. It was arguably the worst loss of the Matt Nagy era and it felt right out of the book of Marc Trestman,” Jahns wrote about the team’s performance against Tampa Bay, adding:
“Nearly seven years ago on Sunday, Brady and the Patriots, the eventual Super Bowl champions that season, routed the Bears 51-23 at Gillette Stadium. It was an ugly, humiliating loss that showed just how far Trestman’s Bears were from truly contending. The same happened this year, this time in Florida. Any mention of Trestman is a bad look for Nagy. But that’s how bad Sunday went for his Bears.”
Why do the comps to Trestman matter? Because after, as Jahns noted, the Bears got shellacked by Brady back in 2014, they were badly beaten by Rodgers and the Packers, 55-14, and those two losses were said to be the straws that broke the McCaskeys backs. The team waited until the end of the season to fire him (the Bears have never fired a head coach during the regular season), but they fired him nonetheless. Jahns isn’t the only one thinking this way.
Bill Zimmerman of SB Nation’s Windy City Gridiron agrees:
Nov 9, 2014, Aaron Rodgers had Green Bay up 42-0 at halftime on a national stage.
It was at that point that George McCaskey knew Marc Trestman and his coaching staff had to go.
I’m feeling similar vibes today.
As does Mark Potash of the Chicago Sun-Times:
The last time the #Bears lost to Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady in back-to-back games — in 2014 — there were major changes at Halas Hall following the season, with both GM Phil Emery and coach Marc Trestman fired.
It’s too early to tell, but right now, Matt Nagy’s future in Chicago is cloudy at best.
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