Matt Nagy Still in Charge

The Bears coach says he can only assume he'll remain as head coach through the regular season and there will be an evaluation afterward, and he hasn't had a change in his regular communication with ownership or GM Ryan Pace.

Bears coach Matt Nagy reported Monday no change in how he deals on a regular basis with general manager Ryan Pace or ownership, so he's assuming he'll still be coaching the team at least through the end of the regular season.

"No, there hasn't been, we stay on the same path as far as the communication that we have with (owner) George (McCaskey), (CEO) Ted (Phillips), Ryan and myself, nothing's changed there," Nagy said. "And you know every year you're always aware of the situation with your team and players, coaches, all that stuff and we're continuing to move forward this week and prepare for the Giants."

Nagy preferred instead to push all talk of the fate of the coaching staff off on a quote he heard from Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. 

For those of you who wanted Nagy fired today, who do you propose conduct the interviews for a new coach? Pace? What if he’s fired too? Philips? What if he’s fired or moves into a different role with the Bears?

Seams pointless without knowing the upper leadership structure 🐻⬇️

— TMY 🐻⬇️ (@Terence_M_Young) December 27, 2021

"All that other stuff kind of gets into what I talked about at the start of the year with that Giannis quote about worrying about the past and the future and we're in the present right now," Nagy said. "I and we all owe that to each other for today and for this week with the Giants and finishing out this week on a high note trying to get a win and then doing it again in the final game of the season."

A popular notion had been the Bears might want to take advantage of a new rule allowing two week at this time when they can  do Zoom interviews with other teams' assistant coaches in order to get a jump on the coach hiring process. Only teams with interim coaches can do it.

After winning 25-24 in comeback fashion over Seattle on the road, when the Seahawks still hadn't been eliminated from playoff consideration, it could be a proverbial feather in Nagy's cap. Perhaps that and the team's effort will help him when final evaluations are made.  

Rallying behind third-string quarterback Nick Foles may have indicated the amount of fight left in the team. 

On the other hand also showed some of the flaws in their offseason planning. They spent a good deal of cap space on Andy Dalton, yet Foles played more effectively in his first action this year than any quarterback has all season, including rookie first-round pick Justin Fields 

"We're aware that when you draft a quarterback, there's gonna be some experiences and time that he needs to be able to get better and let the game slow down for him," Nagy said, referring to Fields. "Now with Nick, with Andy, we have two experienced quarterbacks that have played a lot of NFL snaps and a lot of big moments. 

"Justin’s done it on the college side, but he's building that on the NFL side now. And I really go back to Justin, his development in that Pittsburgh Steelers game—that moment he had where he took the team down the field and led 'em on a two-minute drive to score the winning—or what we thought was the winning touchdown. And that was a great moment for him. It was growth."

Nagy hasn't given up hope of getting Fields back on the field this season, even though he was sidelined last week. There will be no injured reserve status for Fields, even if he isn't finding receivers with the regularity of their third-string quarterback, Foles.

"So I think that we all understand as coaches, his teammates all understand as players—Justin's teammates—that when he's out there, there's gonna be some concepts and some defenses that he's never seen in this league," Nagy said. "So it might not look as natural or as easy. But that's gonna happen and I think with Justin when that comes and when you develop him and you're patient with that, you can really reap the benefits of his talent. 

"And his DNA of who he is as a person. But there’s patience with that. And I think that’s where, when you have patience with a rookie quarterback and you don't anoint him a hall-of-fame quarterback within the first year or two. You just have to understand there's gonna be some valleys as you go through it. But Nick did a good job yesterday. The ball was coming out on time."

The end result was 7 of 14 on third downs, far better than the 34.6% the Bears have averaged. They are 30th in the league at third-down conversions. Also, Nagy saw more yards after the catch on Sunday as a sign of Foles' experience.

"In my opinion and our coaching staff's opinion, yesterday was the best day that we had as run after the catch, whether it was a tight end with (Cole) Kmet and Jimmy (Graham), whether it was you know the running backs with (David Montgomery), whether it was the wide receivers with a bunch of guys that were catching and getting north and south. 

"That part again that's effort, you're not getting tackled for a catch/tackle for 1-yard gain. You're getting extra yards. There was a lot of those plays."

It wasn't just ball carriers, either, Nagy added.

"There was a play before we got into the end zone where you see our offensive linemen just hauling ass to run down there and try to push the ball carrier into the end zone," Nagy said. "Those are effort moments that we as coaches really appreciate and they stood out yesterday."

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