Chicago Bears: Why Justin Fields deserves zero blame for Week 3 loss
By Ryan Heckman
Matt Nagy deserves blame for failing to scheme around Justin Fields’ strengths
Watching the game on Sunday, and then re-watching it, one thing was abundantly clear: Matt Nagy didn’t seem to care for his rookie quarterback’s well being. It almost felt too obvious.
Out of the 42 plays the Bears ran on offense, Nagy called just two designed rollouts for Fields. The Bears have a big, strong quarterback who runs in the 4.4 range and decided to keep him in the pocket for all but just two of his drop backs.
Nagy also failed to set his quarterback up with the proper protection. Out of the 30 called pass plays, Nagy’s offensive line went with just a 5-man protection on 21 of those plays. Over two thirds of Fields’ called passing plays, he was protected with the bare bones. As ESPN analyst and former head coach Rex Ryan put it, not even Tom Brady should be given that little of protection.
.@danorlovsky7 and Rex Ryan absolutely unleashed on the Bears' head coach 😳
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) September 27, 2021
"The Chicago Bears should fire Matt Nagy today. Because yesterday's game plan, which was the worst one I've ever seen in my life, was either negligence or intentional!" pic.twitter.com/SnWhQjNYme
As Dan Orlovsky said in the above video, some of this did feel intentional. After all, Nagy has continued to ride the Andy Dalton bus for the past six months without any intent to stop it. His ego has become big enough that he just might start Nick Foles next week to try and prove that his rookie quarterback isn’t ready. Throwing Fields to the wolves very well could have been Nagy’s intent.
It also would explain all of the “I don’t know” or “everything is on the table” answers we heard during his Monday press conference. This guy has no answer for any notable question. All he does is beat around the bush and continue to push his own narrative.
This was unacceptable by Matt Nagy.