Q&A WITH CHICAGO BEARS HEAD COACH MATT NAGY

Interview with Chicago Bears Head Coach Matt Nagy

What did you learn about General Manager Ryan Pace after he made the Khalil Mack trade? I think the first thing with Ryan that anybody realizes or sees is that he wants to do what's best for the organization. When you run into different scenarios or situations, you want to be able to hit it from every angle and discuss different things with each other. Right away from the front end with me, that's kind of how things went, which I appreciated. Just being able to bounce ideas off each other, I just have so much respect for how we've gotten where we got to from that point then to now. I just think that he's an extremely detailed person. We always joke, he writes everything down and types it all up. He makes up for the stuff that I don't type or write down. We just bounce stuff off each other and work well together.

How did you land on Sean Desai for defensive coordinator? Was Wade Phillips in consideration? With the defensive coordinator hire, with this being the second time for me, to learn through the process of the experience and how to go about it, number one on the front end, I'm not going to -- there could be a lot of different names that come up. I'm not going to, with all due respect to the people involved -- I ended up interviewing nine defensive coordinators. So I'll give you the number. And that was different than the first time. And then there were a lot of great ones. They all did a really good job and that made it hard. But in the end, I just was really excited for the direction that Sean saw this team moving forward. The thing that I really like about Sean is his conviction and confidence he has and the way that he's gotten to this point right now. He's really, really smart, but he's really, really football smart, too. He has an unbelievable connection with these players and what I find fascinating is when you go through the process, every person that we talk to and that I talk to, all have their strengths and weaknesses. And one of the big obstacles and hurdles that Sean has always had to go through is coming through the ranks that he's been in — the fact that he did not play college football, he did not play in the NFL, he did not play in the Arena League. But that said, to see the way the guys respect him and the way that he works and how he got to this point, it was really neat. And then everything else that goes into it. So many strengths and I'm just really excited and looking forward to him putting his spin onto this defense. He's been waiting for this for a long time and now the opportunity's here and I'm really, really excited for him and our team.

Do you believe that this team is close to competing for a championship? You look at where we’ve been at the last three years and you get to a point where we could sit here and we could talk about the playoffs two of three years, that gets brought up, you could talk about the offensive struggle, you could talk about the quarterback position. But really what it comes down to is every year is so different. For me, as the head coach, my biggest challenge going into this year is trying to learn from the previous three years of where we’re at and how do we get better. There’s a lot of different things that I’m growing [in]. I’ve said that each year, but I really am. I feel like, for me, if I can take my weaknesses in what I’ve had in whatever it is and use other coaches’ strengths to help me out, I’ll do that. It’s a new year. Last year is gone. Just like Sean said. You guys were asking Sean, ‘What’s your defense going to look like?’ It’s going to look like the 2021 Sean Desai defense. I love that. I think that’s real. We have an opportunity and we know that we have different areas to fix and different areas to get better and it’s our job now as coaches to make sure that we’re coaching at the highest level. We’re putting these guys in the best position possible. When you go through a four-game losing streak as we did in ’19, when you go through a six-game losing streak like we did last year, let’s eliminate those. Let’s have more of the 5-1 starts and finish strong. Let’s get to the playoffs. Let’s win in the playoffs. That’s our challenge to our coaching staff and our players heading into this year.

This is the third straight offseason that you have had a pretty major overhaul with position coaches. Is there any reason for concern on your part with new voices coming in? No there's not. The one with Vic is uncontrollable. He goes ahead and gets that head job in Denver so that's that. And you have another one where it's retirement. Do you know what I mean? So that's just that part. I do think offensively for us heading into this second year together, I can't even begin to tell you how much easier it is going into watching the film right now in the morning together and everybody knowing it and not having to re-teach things. Now for Sean, it's been very important and then I love this, it's been very important that all of us are in the building together, all by the rules and by protocol. Being there as much we love doing these Zoom interviews and Zoom talks, they are good, but it's just different when you're in the building, it's just different when you're together. That's kind of the direction we are going right now. I think for Sean now getting back to what he wants, cause that is a lot of new guys on that side, they are really able to kind of feel who each other is, their personalities, have ideas and not having to click the unmute button every time they talk. So that part has been good. And then offensively I feel like we are a step ahead because we have Bill Lazor and now Flip has had the quarterbacks and our other coaches are in their fourth year. I really feel good with where we are at, now we have to put it all together and see where the offseason goes.

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