Matt Nagy Still in COVID protocol

Bears special teams coordinator Chris Tabor has the job of making in-game decisions for the team Sunday against San Francisco after Nagy failed to get out of the NFL's COVID protocol.

The ball is in Chris Tabor's hand for the moment.

The Bears will lean on their special teams coordinator Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers as acting head coach while coach Matt Nagy watches the game on television due to the COVID-19 protocol.

The team announced Nagy's final status for the game on Saturday and Nagy, who has been vaccinated, will not get in two negative tests in the required 24-hour period so he is unable to coach.

Nagy spent the week communicating with the team virtually at Halas Hall as they practiced and had meetings.

On Friday, Nagy had said preparations were made for Tabor to take over as a precaution.

"Coach Tabes has been great with all that," Nagy said. "We do a lot of that anyway, as him being the special teams coordinator and I do with the coordinators. But now that he's in that role where he'd end up having to be the guy that makes the decisions just giving him support so that he feels good and understands."

Some of the decisions, though, are not based on any eventuality they can address. It's situational.

"And then, you know, a lot of it too, when you're in the moment, there's some things you just can’t predict," Nagy admitted. "There's a feel to it as well and that's where that feel will come into play and we have a nice little plan in place if that's the case."

Tabor was a small college head coach one season at Culver-Stockton in 2001 and his team went 6-5.

"With regards to that other stuff, if that ever came up, you've always been preparing yourself your whole life to do that," Tabor said Thursday about decision making on the sidelines. "So I’ve watched a lot of football games and have thought about those types of things, so if it ever did come up, put yourself in a good position to help the team."

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