Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy has never been known for being an eloquent speaker, but this is getting out of hand.
After Chicago’s Week 7 trouncing courtesy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Nagy came under scrutiny for his postgame responses to various questions. The Bears coach was asked about this 38-3 loss potentially resulting in a negative shift for the team moving forward, and his answer to that and other questions left many perplexed, annoyed or just plain fed up.
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Analysts Baffled By Nagy’s Positive Assertions After Crushing Loss
After losing just one game by 20+ points in his first three seasons with the team, Nagy has seen the Bears lost three games by 20 or more points already through Week 7. The 35-point loss to Tom Brady and the Buccaneers was the worst in his tenure with the team, and when he was asked what made him confident the team wouldn’t let this loss cripple them, Nagy said this:
I will say the last couple days with our team, we’ve become really close. For us to become as close as we have the last 24-48 hours, I just trust and believe in them. And they’ve done it before. We’re 3-4 right now. Again, we can’t have this affect us and make it be a 2 or 3 or 4, feel like that much of a loss. We lost and we’ve got to learn from it. Our guys have rebounded before in the past and I just know from our discussion in there after the game and where we’re at right now as fighters and people and teammates, it’s not fun. This is not fun. But at the same point in time, we all go through some adversity to get us where we want to go in the end. That’s why I feel that way.
The rebounding Nagy’s likely referring to is the team coming back from losing six straight in 2020 to make the playoffs. But they only made the playoffs after the Arizona Cardinals helped them with the loss, and finishing with two consecutive 8-8 seasons is nothing to brag about.
But it was Nagy’s assertion that because he and the team became “really close” over the previous 24-48 hours and that made him less worried about how they’ll respond drew both ire and confusion from fans and analysts alike.
Mike Berman of NBC 5 Chicago called Nagy’s comments head-scratching:
Dionne Miller of ABC 7 called the coach’s statements “bizarre.”
@MikeBermanNBC It’s such a bizarre statement after an ugly loss… Glad you’re all friends, Coach, but this is about winning.
Some accused Nagy of trying to make himself look better in the eyes of Bears’ brass by highlighting how close he is with his team:
That wasn’t all Nagy said in his October 24 press conference that heat, however.
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Nagy Makes Odd Reference to Playing With Pride in Blowout vs Bucs
While he acknowledged that the 35-point defeat at the hands of Brady and company was “tough,” Nagy also drew ire for the following comments, in which he suggested his team played with pride in the second half because the defense had two goal line stands:
“It was a tough one,” Nagy said. “In the time that I’ve been here, that’s definitely a tough one. In the locker room, the guys are in there and we talked about pride and we talked about them being able to battle there at the end. This isn’t the result we wanted but let’s make this count as one loss and not four losses.”
Naturally, Twitter had responses:
Some reasonably wondered how Bears’ players must feel hearing some of this stuff:
Regardless of what anyone took from Nagy’s post game press conference, it’s clear just about everyone listening is tired of the head coach’s verbal gymnastics.
In unrelated news, Nagy announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 the day after the loss on October 25, so he will be in quarantine and not with the team moving forward.
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Bears Matt Nagy Under Fire for ‘Bizarre’ Postgame Comments