Chicago Bears: Matt Nagy the right man to turn team around
After firing John Fox, the Chicago Bears did not waste any time. After interviewing a total of six candidates, Ryan Pace chose Matt Nagy, who will help turn the franchise around.
Late Monday morning, Adam Jahns of the Chicago Sun-Times broke the news that Matt Nagy, the Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator, would become the 16th head coach in Chicago Bears history. Nagy is everything the franchise needs to pump some life into the program.
Think about it. He’s basically the anti-John Fox (and the coaching version of Pace). He’s 39 years old, innovative, offensive-minded and also has energetic press conferences with legitimate responses. You’ll see it during his press conference today, which should be around 2 pm ET (1 pm CT).
It also speaks volumes that Nagy hadn’t even been to Halas Hall before agreeing to become the head coach. After interviewing Nagy on Sunday, Ryan Pace didn’t leave Kansas City. Pace wanted his guy, and I applaud him for being calculated and aggressive. That’s our general manager.
I was rough on Ryan Pace when he was fired (wanted Chris Ballard) but he's seriously impressed me with his moves since taking over. Moving on from John Fox and going with Matt Nagy shows me he knows what he's doing. https://t.co/o7biJBK0UE
— Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) January 8, 2018
John Mullin from NBC Sports Chicago reported on Sunday that the reason Ted Phillips and George McCaskey were attending the interviews with Pace was that Pace wanted to move quickly to secure the coach. He didn’t want to lose a guy like Nagy to the Indianapolis Colts and their general manager Chris Ballard, who knew Nagy from his own Chiefs days. Having the bosses there allowed Pace to move fast.
Now that he finally has his coach (some still speculate that Pace was pushed to hire Fox), Pace can go to his next job of adding more talent to surround Trubisky.
Now, I want to shift some praise towards Nagy. A lot of fans have been saying that the Chiefs’ loss to the Tennessee Titans should have eliminated him from the list of candidates. Well, Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid was actually believed to be calling most of the plays that game.
Reid on play calling: "(Nagy) called the good ones and I called the bad ones." @KCTV5
— Dani Welniak (@DaniWelniak) January 7, 2018
Nagy called plays at the end of the season because the Chiefs were really struggling to win games. Nagy went 4-1 as the play caller, and his offense averaged 28.6 points per game. Speaking of Nagy calling plays, that’s something that Reid is not accustomed to giving up. Reid has been a head coach since 1999, yet he’s never trusted anyone else to fully take the duties from him. Think about that.
I stand corrected. Andy Reid has given play calling duties to some of his OC’s in the past but not to the extent Nagy called plays. Says a lot about what Andy thinks about Nagy’s coaching talent
— Greg Gabriel (@ggabefootball) January 9, 2018
Also, Reid has stated that Nagy is the best coaching prospect that he’s ever had. That is an absolute bombshell. This includes guys like Ron Rivera, Pat Shurmur, Doug Pederson, Sean McDermott, Dave Toub, Brad Childress and John Harbaugh.
Andy Reid has told @caplannfl that Nagy is the best head coaching prospect he’s ever had. Will be interesting to see Trubisky develop under his watch https://t.co/AazMiwYiW6
— Chris Wesseling (@ChrisWesseling) January 8, 2018
People always bring up Belichick assistants when talking about potential HC candidates. It’s guys from the Andy Reid tree that have the success. Rivera, Harbaugh, McDermott, Pederson are examples
— Greg Gabriel (@ggabefootball) December 19, 2017
Pederson, of course, led the Philadelphia Eagles to the number-one seed in the NFC this season. Brad Biggs, from the Chicago Tribune, stated that:
"One NFL assistant who has worked with Nagy and Pederson called Nagy the better coach and said his interpersonal relationships with players were superior. He called Nagy a “rock star” in the making as he heads to Halas Hall."
This “rock star” will be tasked with developing Mitch Trubisky into the quarterback that we all know he can become. Nagy helped develop Patrick Mahomes (also a rookie quarterback), while also helping Alex Smith have his best season of his career.
The good news is that Nagy is a huge fan of Trubisky. Obviously, the Chiefs did a lot of work on Trubisky going into the draft, since they were going to take one in the first round.
Here is a great piece of intel: Source close to Matt Nagy tells @ESPN1000 that Nagy loved Trubisky in 2017 NFL Draft and the Chiefs loved him. Nagy has stayed close to him during this season. Nagy believes you can win big with Trubisky.
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) January 4, 2018
While it’s not an identical situation, there are similarities between the Chiefs and Chicago Bears. The Chiefs have star tight end Travis Kelce, while the Chicago Bears have a talented, second-round tight end Adam Shaheen. The Chiefs have a talented speedster named Tyreek Hill, while the Chicago Bears have Tarik Cohen. The Chiefs have the leading rusher from 2017 in Kareem Hunt, while the Chicago Bears have Jordan Howard, the second leading rusher in 2016.
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It will be interesting to see who Nagy brings in for his staff. Rich Campbell from the Chicago Tribune said that quarterbacks coach Dave Ragone will most likely stay with the team. I suppose it’s good to have someone around that Trubisky knows.
Will Vic Fangio re-sign with the Chicago Bears? That is the million dollar question.
Word out of Chicago is that the team and new head coach Matt Nagy would like to bring Vic Fangio back as the DC. Fangio’s decision. @gmfb @NFLonFOX @nflnetwork
— Peter Schrager (@PSchrags) January 8, 2018
While I believe that losing Fangio wouldn’t be the end of the world, it would still be great to get him to stay with the Chicago Bears. Continuity is important and it would be awesome if he could get to see this top-ten defense through.
Next: Matt Nagy hire a win for Chicago Bears
That way, Nagy could basically worry about the offense on game days because he would know that the defense is in good hands with Fangio. So, make him the highest paid defensive coordinator in the NFL, and together they can make the Chicago Bears great again!