Getty Ex-Bears head coach Matt Nagy call return to Chicago on the opposite sideline when the Chiefs come to town on August 13.
Matt Nagy spent four seasons as head coach of the Chicago Bears, from 2018-2021.
After going 12-4 in his first season with the team and winning Coach of the Year, it was all downhill from there. That was his only winning season in Chicago, and while the team made the postseason twice during his four years there, it failed to win a playoff game.
Nagy finished his time in the Windy City with a 34-31 mark in regular season play (the Bears went 22-27 over his final three years) and he was fired at the conclusion of the 2021 season, along with former general manager Ryan Pace.
Shortly after he was let go by the Bears, he was hired by the Kansas City Chiefs to be their senior assistant and quarterbacks coach, reuniting him with his mentor, K.C. head coach Andy Reid. Now, Nagy will return to Soldier Field for the first time since leaving Chicago when the Bears play the Chiefs in what will be the first preseason game for both teams on August 13.
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Nagy: There Was Disappointment, but I’m not Defeated
When meeting with the media on August 9, the former Bears head coach was asked how he viewed his time in Chicago now that he’s got some hindsight.
“I’ll say this right now,” Nagy said. “I wouldn’t change anything [about] those experiences. I’d change a lot of what happened — I wish we won more and could have done more — but I learned a lot. That part, I wouldn’t change. I think I gotta be able to self-reflect on where I went wrong and how I could have been better.”
Nagy acknowledged that his final season with the Bears was far from ideal, but says the friendships and relationships he formed along the way made everything worth it.
“It didn’t end how we wanted it to,” Nagy admitted. “And there was disappointment, there was discouragement, but all that said, I know I’m not defeated. I know those other [former Bears] players, coaches and people aren’t defeated. So we just gotta be better from it.”
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When asked if he was expecting to go through a lot of different emotions when he returns to Soldier Field for Kansas City’s first preseason game, Nagy admitted it could be the challenge to keep his emotions at bay.
“No. 1, what I have to do — it’s my professional job to make sure I step back and make sure it’s about ‘we’ and not ‘me,'” he said. “I mean that when I say that. But that’s hard sometimes. And so when I get there — I’m so used to being on the home side, right? In the home locker room coming out. It’s different [now]. I don’t know how I’ll feel when I get out there.”
By the end of his tenure, Nagy wasn’t very popular amongst the Bears’ fan base, so it will be interesting to see how the former coach is received by the Soldier Field crowd.
“This is the next journey for me, the next chapter,” Nagy said. “And we’re gonna move on.”
You can watch Nagy’s full interview below.
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Matt Nagy Sounds Off on Bears Return: ‘I Know I’m not Defeated’