Chicago Bears: 3 things we learned from win over Chiefs

Nagy is in control

Matt Nagy took an awful lot of criticism following his decision to rest his starters for the game. While most of it came from the old guard Chicago media — who apparently prefer the days when 40 percent of the Bears’ roster was injured — they laid the criticism on pretty thick.

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The critics’ arguments ranged from “Hey, Bill Belichick plays his starters” to “the Bears have been so historically bad they need all the practice they can get.”

Some of the more reasoned critiques were based on the fact that Mitch Trubisky needed as many repetitions as possible considering he is implementing a new offense with a new cast of wide receivers.

Well, in the post-game press conference, the collective “think tank” of Nagy critics got their opportunity to confront the coach — and boy was Nagy ready.

While he recognized the arguments against his decision, he also quickly dismissed them as baseless.

He firmly reminded the crowd that he doesn’t care what Belichick or Andy Reid do because this is HIS team, and essentially he’ll run it as he sees fit. He reminded the audience that no one knows this team better than him — perhaps a thinly veiled shot at the “second-guessers” in the room who cast aspersions from their keyboards.

Finally, Nagy made it clear that as the team (and Trubisky specifically) approach nearly 2,000 snaps this preseason, 25-30 more against the Chiefs were not going to tip the scales in either direction.

In that moment, Nagy made it clear that this is his team and he will make decisions based on what is best for it. While he has respect for the media, he clearly could care less about their opinions on how he should run his team. Perhaps the most important takeaway from Nagy’s decision to rest his starters is that it cemented his status as the man in charge — just in case there was any doubt.