Chicago Bears: Matt Nagy’s comments smack of desperation

The Chicago Bears coach sounds desperate.

Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy unloaded during his Monday morning Zoom call with the media following their embarrassing loss to the Green Bay Packers in prime time. However, the comments, while animated, smacked of desperation coming from a coach who senses the end is near.

Nagy surprisingly began the presser by ripping into a defensive unit that admittedly underperformed on Sunday but who has saved his underperforming offense more times than you can count. Considering his offense performs with the efficiency of a sloth on tranquilizers, it seems misguided to point the finger at the only positive from his tenure.

After trashing the defense, he went in on the rest of the team and the staff — imploring them to “wake up” and “work their tails off.” He chided them for not putting in the extra work “on the JUGS machine” or “in the film room.”

While he emphasized he wasn’t pointing the fingers at anyone, it sure as heck felt like he was pointing the finger.

The problem is he failed, until the very end of the call, to point the finger at himself. At the end of his diatribe, Nagy said “and it starts with me,” — except that it didn’t. If it did, then his comments should have started with him taking responsibility for the team’s failures. But they didn’t.

So in throwing everyone else under the bus, except for the main culprit, Nagy inadvertently revealed a characteristic found in almost every head coach who is trying not to get fired — desperation.

What’s ironic is this desperate attempt at saving his hide may have done more harm than good. You see, all of the things Nagy criticized his team for — a lack of effort, preparation, and motivation — are all things the head coach is directly responsible for.

All of the things Nagy was critical of are things that are emblematic of a team’s culture — or lack thereof. And considering Nagy’s most touted strength has been his ability to build a culture within the locker room, railing against said culture feels like the ultimate self-own.

Time will tell if the team responds positively to being called out so publicly, or if, like the fans, they smell blood in the water and ultimately tune out the casserole of nonsense emanating from Nagy’s mouth.