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Myles Garrett and the Cleveland Browns defense ate Matt Nagy’s lunch in their 26-6 Week 3 win over the Chicago Bears.
Garrett had a career-high 4.5 sacks, which was also a franchise record for the Browns, who sacked rookie Justin Fields a total of nine times during the QB’s debut as a starter. The Bears rookie quarterback completed just 6 of 20 passes for 68 yards — 67 of which were negated by all the sacks. Fields looked understandably overwhelmed as he and the Bears went 1-11 on third down and 0-1 on fourth down in the loss, while averaging a paltry 1.1 yards per play.
Instead of rolling Fields out more and using a few screens and designed runs to help the young signal-caller, Nagy kept him primarily in the pocket, which spelled disaster at the end of the day.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio appeared on Football Night in America after the slate of early and late afternoon games to discuss the highs and lows in the NFL Week 3, and he revealed a conversation he had with Garrett that doesn’t look good for Nagy at all.
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Garrett Surprised By Nagy’s Use of Fields
Florio says he spoke with Garrett after the win over the Bears, and revealed what the All-Pro pass rusher had to say about Nagy’s use of his talented rookie QB.
“He told me that the Browns’ defense was surprised by the way that Justin Fields was used — or more accurately, the way he wasn’t used,” Florio said, per Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times. “They didn’t move him around, they didn’t get him out of the pocket, they didn’t roll him out, they didn’t take advantage of his mobility. It made it easier for the [pass rushers] to get home, to get him on the ground.”
Oof. One of the top pass rushers in the league just revealed that the Bears coach made his job — and the jobs of his fellow defenders — a lot easier. That’s not a good look for a head coach who has been trying to get his offensive scheme to work for well over three years now.
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Garrett: ‘We Kind of Figured Out What They Were Going to Do’
When he was asked after the game if he knew he and his fellow defensive lineman were going to get home often against this Bears offense, Garrett responded in the affirmative.
“After that first possession, I thought so, just seeing how we were getting off the ball,” Garrett said. “After that, I think we kind of settled in and saw how they planned to use the flow of the game. It kind of came to us easily after the second possession and [we] kind of figured out what they were going to do and how we were going to adjust to that.”
He was also asked if he had expected Fields to run a bit more, and Garrett said this: “I think he tried to. I just thought we were pretty prepared for it.”
Not only did Nagy lack in his preparation of the offense, he failed to make any in-game adjustments to help his rookie quarterback. Garrett‘s comments are a damning indictment of the Bears’ head coach and play-caller, who at least accepted the blame for the loss after the game.
“As a head coach, I did not do a good enough job of getting this offense ready to go, to be able to play and win a football game. So, it starts with me, ends with me and it’s as simple as that,” Nagy said.
That’s all true. Now, the primary question moving forward is: How long will the Bears head coach continue to accept the responsibility for games like this without seeing any actual accountability?
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