The Chicago Bears came into their Monday Night Football matchup with the Los Angeles Rams sitting at 5-1. All of their five wins have been pretty ugly, and the Bears head coach Matt Nagy was skating with the team bailing him out of more losses. On Monday night, Nagy’s luck came to an end, and the Bears were humiliated in primetime for the world to see. The Bears lost 24-10, and Matt Nagy’s coaching was front and center.
The Bears started this game off with penalties. These penalties have been adding up for weeks now, and this lack of discipline falls on the coaching staff. Nagy hasn’t taken any responsibility for the Bears’ defense leading the league in penalties. Until Nagy takes it on himself to teach both the offense and defense to be more disciplined, these unnecessary penalties will continue.
The offense, Nagy’s supposed strong suit, has been at the bottom of the NFL for the past two years. The play calling has been awful, and any offensive player’s development has been nonexistent. The Bears sat quarterback Mitch Trubisky, despite being 2-0, and brought in their $21 million back-up, Nick Foles. Since Foles took over, this offense has not looked any better than it did under Trubisky. The common denominator, Matt Nagy. He is their head coach, and he is their play-caller. Nagy needs to kick his ego aside and do better or delegate to someone else that can do better.
Game-time managing is another one of Nagy’s weaknesses, and the whole world got to see it in primetime. I’ve always said that he doesn’t know how to manage his timeouts in big situations, and it became apparent right away. Instead of allowing for a blocked punt or punt return, he opted to keep his last first-half timeout, and time ran out. This game was only 10-3 at the point of this total miscue by Nagy.
Nagy’s bad playcalling came into play after the Bears made it into the red-zone. He took out TE Jimmy Graham, who was brought in to help with the red-zone. Foles threw an interception that play. Of course, there is no guarantee that Graham would have made that play, but it would have given them their best chance to score.
Even with this awful game, the Bears are 5-2, second in the division, and have a shot at the playoffs. However, Nagy does need to make some changes with his coaching and management. The Bears can only keep up this facade for so long.