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The Chicago Bears have had one of their most up and down seasons in recent memory. They began the year with a 5-1 record before embarking on a six-game losing streak, which they ended by winning three of their last four, finishing the regular season with an 8-8 mark. Chicago had a win-and-in scenario against the Packers Week 17, with a spot in the postseason guaranteed if they took down the NFC’s top-seeded Goliath. Instead, the Bears lost to Green Bay, 35-16, but they backed into the playoffs regardless, riding on the coattails of a Los Angeles Rams victory over the Arizona Cardinals.
So, the Bears are in the playoffs, and they’ll have an opportunity to advance against a tough New Orleans Saints team, but how will chairman George Halas McCaskey evaluate head coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace, both of whom have had their job security questioned multiple times this year? Will the fact that the league added a seventh playoff spot last year, which is what allowed the Bears to sneak into the postseason, be factored in? Chicago was not a well-coached football team in its loss to Green Bay, but Matt Nagy has finished with marks of 12-4 before churning out two consecutive .500 seasons, so his return seems likely.
Still, everything is up in the air in Chicago, with Pace’s job security in particular, being called into question.
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NFL Insiders: Nagy Looks Safe, Pace, Not so Much
While the majority of NFL insiders are saying Nagy is expected to return, many of them aren’t so sure about Pace, who took over as GM in 2015. “Before Sunday’s game, word was that Matt Nagy would likely be back in 2021, and that GM Ryan Pace might have a little more to worry about. So we could see some change, but likely not the total change that seemed to be in play earlier in the year,” NFL insider Albert Breer wrote in his Monday column for Sports Illustrated.
On Fox NFL Sunday however, analyst and insider Jay Glazer, who has a solid reputation when it comes to the validity of the information he reports, made it a point to say Nagy was not safe to the best of his knowledge.
“Matt Nagy and their GM Ryan Pace — I don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen here, because we don’t know if they’re gonna make the playoffs, or how deep they go in the playoffs, so time will tell on them,” Glazer said.
Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune, who has been covering the Bears for the last 20 years, likely has the most educated take on the matter, which also supports the Nagy staying/Pace possibly leaving scenario:
Bears coach Matt Nagy is probably in good standing to return in 2021. He has two years remaining on his contract, and after three seasons, he’s eight games above .500. It would be unlike the Bears to fire him if they lose to the Saints and reboot the organization entirely. Nagy deserves a good deal of blame for a six-game losing streak, the franchise’s longest since 2002, that nearly torpedoed the season. He also deserves credit for keeping the locker room focused and helping the Bears dig their way out of the considerable mess they were in … But there are troubling signs for the Bears, who finished in second place in the division but five games behind the Packers. They were 1-6 against teams that finished with a winning record, and it remains to be seen what will happen with general manager Ryan Pace. Is a playoff berth as the first No. 7 seed in the NFC, the team’s second postseason appearance in three years, enough to secure Pace’s future? I don’t know.
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Is Matt Nagy Calling Plays Again?
While there has been confusion regarding Nagy’s job security, there was also a surprising report Sunday courtesy of insider Ian Rapoport, who said that Nagy is expected back, and “he’s taken much more of a heavier hand in play-calling” in recent weeks. This raised eyebrows because Chicago’s offensive resurgence in recent weeks has often been attributed to offensive coordinator Bill Lazor taking over play-calling duties.
Still, it’s unclear whether Nagy has actually been calling plays, or whether he has simply had a heavy hand in offensive scheme and design of late. Windy City Gridiron’s Robert Schmitz had a nice thread explaining that Chicago’s scheme may have looked different against Green Bay not because Nagy was calling plays, but because the Packers found a way to stop the Bears’ run game:
Nagy has not confirmed or denied whether he has been calling plays again, but it seems clear that barring catastrophe in New Orleans, he’ll be back as head coach in 2021. Pace’s future, however, remains murky.
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