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The Chicago Bears are coming off an ugly 41-15 loss to the Buffalo Bills in their second preseason game, and between the terrible tackling, porous defense and broken special teams unit, there is a great deal that needs to be fixed in the two weeks leading up to the regular season.
When Bears head coach Matt Nagy spoke to the media after the game, he began by listing the positives, beginning by giving a kicker who isn’t going to even make the 53-man roster a shout out:
“The positives from today, which obviously, there were more not good versus things that were good, I thought Brian Johnson having a 54-yard field goal at the end, just for him in that situation,” Nagy said on August 21. “The touchdown catch by Rodney Adams, he just had a baby last night and didn’t get much sleep, so just to take advantage of that was good. Mario Edwards having two sacks, Trevis Gipson with one and (Sam) Kamara with one, and having two takeaways, that’s the good.”
Then, the Bears coach got specific about why his team got shellacked.
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Nagy Calls Out Defense, Special Teams
“Unfortunately, there was more stuff that was not good,” Nagy began. “The penalties for us offensively was one step forward and two steps back. … Defensively, they had those couple series where they were really getting first downs and had the time of possession and were scoring touchdowns. And special teams, we had a lot of stuff on special teams that we can improve.”
One thing Nagy failed to acknowledge is that penalties are the result of poor and undisciplined coaching. The Bears finished the game with 10 penalties for 73 yards, which is clearly an issue. But those false starts and sloppy offensive line penalties — those are on o-line coach Juan Castillo, who was a hire selected by Nagy.
A little self-awareness goes a long way, and a bit more wouldn’t hurt the Bears coach.
He called out the tackling on defense, which was shoddy at best. “I think probably the biggest thing was just the tackling, some of the tackling and we had a couple penalties on third down where we were—on offense we did the same thing,” Nagy said on August 23.
“So that’s my biggest part is, OK, when we’re out here and we play, we tackle and they’re gonna drive down the field and we get a stop in the red zone. I thought we were in great position on fourth-and-1 and they made a better play than us. That’s a part of football. Our guys see, though. We’re gonna watch it together as a team and coaches today and go through it. But tackling would be No. 1.”
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Nagy Has a History of Admitting Culpability, But Not Changing Much
After a 12-4 debut season that saw him win Coach of the Year, Nagy’s Bears have had back-to-back 8-8 seasons, and Nagy has gone 0-2 in the playoffs. If his team continues to play uninspired and sloppy ball when the regular season arrives, it’ll reflect more on him than anything or anyone.
Nagy did fall on his sword a bit later, saying: “We want to make sure that we stay right in the middle ground and understand that today wasn’t good enough. That’s my job to make sure that we are better.”
Pause right there. That last bit sounds like something the Bears coach has said multiple times before, with minimal results.
“It wasn’t good enough,” Nagy said, via Chris Emma of 670 The Score, after Chicago’s 10-3 Week 1 loss to the Green Bay Packers on national television back in 2019. “Wasn’t good enough. And I told the players that. I told them that last night in the locker room, it starts with me. I need to be better. And I will be better. And I’m going to demand that from myself, from our coaches and from our players.”
After his team lost the third of what would ultimately be six games in a row last season, Nagy said this, via the Chicago Tribune: “We didn’t do enough offensively to get the job done. Recurring theme here on offense. That starts with me, and we’ve got to get it better.”
But Chicago hasn’t gotten all that much better. The Bears had 88 penalties called on them as a team in 2020, 103 in 2019 and 97 in 2018, Nagy’s first year. The Bears scored 23.3 points a game last year, up from a dreadful 17.5 in 2019. They scored 26.3 points a game in 2018, which was impressive, but it has been downhill ever since.
Next time the Bears head coach begins assigning blame for a loss, he may want to lead with his failures first, because he’s starting to sound like a broken record.
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