(670 The Score) Matt Nagy always wants to get to the whys, so please, coach, help everyone understand why this is happening to your football team – to Chicago’s football team.
Tell us why the Bears got embarrassed yet again Sunday on national television, this time in a 38-3 loss to the Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa that was the worst of the Nagy era.
Tell us why something like this still happens in your fourth year as Bears head coach, which is increasingly looking like your final one on the sideline.
Tell us why the clever offense you brought from Kansas City still doesn’t work and why your team still can’t score touchdowns. Tell us why anybody should have faith you and your staff of supposed quarterback gurus knows what it takes to develop a first-round draft pick like Justin Fields.
Tell us why the Bears too often take the field looking so unprepared and undisciplined and why everyone can count on at least one dumb unsportsmanlike penalty every game by the defense. Tell us why you deserve to finish the season coaching the Bears, how you plan to improve and what that plan entails – and tell us why before someone tells you when it’s time to leave.
Tell us why the Bears will win again and then show us you mean it, more obviously than you typically do behind a microphone.
“I agree it was a tough one, and in these instances, you’ve got to be close to damn near perfect,’’ Nagy told reporters postgame with familiar oratorical ambiguity.
Nagy added more explanations but nothing impactful. Nothing eloquent or emotional that fit the occasion.
It struck me again that Nagy didn’t rant or rave after a loss this awful. It made me wonder if he should consider using fewer words to show stronger purpose and stop worrying about overreacting. He’s a football coach, and football coaches overreact. It’s the kind of profession where sometimes losing composure helps a coach gain respect. And Nagy ranks among the lowest in the league in respect doing it his way. His team is a national punch line, and his offense is a joke. Try another way.
Rest assured, none of it is funny to people in a passionate football city and the McCaskeys are taking this embarrassment seriously.
One week after Packers nemesis Aaron Rodgers announced he owned the Bears at Soldier Field, Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady beat them badly enough to wonder if anybody is home at Halas Hall.
Hello, George McCaskey? Ted Phillips? Ryan Pace? You there?
The Bucs did more than dominate the Bears in every conceivable phase of the game: offense, defense, special teams and coaching. They damaged the Bears badly enough to give ownership and management a reason to consider major changes, from the team president to the general manager to the head coach and his staff. CBS analyst Tony Romo missed the mark and sounded like an out-of-touch out-of-towner when he declared late in the game that, “This is only one game … This isn’t who they are.’’
What on earth led Romo to that conclusion? Why is he trying to curry favor with the Bears organization instead of telling the hard truth?
This is the truth: Nobody on the team's payroll should wake up Monday feeling anything but uneasy about their job security, not if the Bears recognize what a 35-point blowout to the defending Super Bowl champions truly represented. Nobody wants to hear about character or culture when the Bears just spent the week distracted by immature spats on Twitter and Instagram. Nobody cares about moral victories, late goal-line stands in garbage time or any rationalizations about perceived progress.
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Perhaps the saddest part was the Bears lived down to expectations. Almost everybody familiar with the team could’ve seen this blowout coming from Clearwater Beach, yet nobody knew how to limit the damage, let alone stop it. This felt like one of those inevitabilities in sports, the ant versus the shoe, a matchup nobody in their right football minds gave the Bears a chance of winning before kickoff.
That’s how wide the gap has grown between the Bears and the NFL’s best.
While there was a disparity in talent, in fairness, the Bears arrived ravaged by injury and illness. Dominant defensive tackle Akiem Hicks missed another game due to an injured groin. And in what should constitute a crisis at 1920 Football Drive in Lake Forest, the Bears started the game Sunday with a league-high four players on the reserve/COVID-19 list – including sack specialist Robert Quinn. Additionally, running back Damien Williams had just come off the COVID list Saturday, and wide receivers coach Mike Furrey was in the protocols.
Given their COVID outbreak, I guess nobody ever will nickname these Bears the Maskers of the Midway.
The challenge on the field would've created enough difficulty for a healthy roster, so a compromised one had little chance.
This one got ugly early. The Bears trailed 21-0 at the end of the first quarter, which was bad enough to be nominated as the worst under Nagy before even checking the record books.
The lowlights included:
*A pitiful but predictable opening series in which Bucs safety Antoine Winfield Jr. blitzed, taking advantage of a rookie running back, Khalil Herbert, who didn’t adjust quickly enough, and a rookie quarterback whom Winfield blindsided. Fields fumbled. While the Bears recovered, they quickly went three-and-out. Two plays and 51 seconds later, the Bucs led 7-0 on a Leonard Fournette two-yard touchdown run.
*Cole Kmet dropped a pass on third-and-8, which was no way to celebrate National Tight End Day. The failure to move the chains ruined a 29-yard gain by Herbert on first down that briefly provided hope. An offense with a margin for error as narrow as the Bears’ is can't afford dropped passes by their tight end.
*Fields tried too hard to make something happen and forced a bad throw after escaping the pocket, relying on instincts and athleticism that have served him well -- but not in this case. This time, Fields floated a pass to Allen Robinson, who stumbled, and Bucs cornerback Dee Delaney picked it off. Brady capitalized by showing the football world what precision looks like with a four-yard touchdown pass on a back-shoulder throw to Chris Godwin, who was covered by overmatched Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan.
*Finally, near the end of the disastrous quarter, the Bucs exposed Bears right tackle Lachavious Simmons when Pro Bowl pass rusher Shaq Barrett overpowered the backup’s backup and caused Fields to cough the ball up again. Five plays later, the Bucs scored their third touchdown – the first time the Bears had given up 21 points in the first quarter since Dec. 22, 2013 in Philadelphia against the Eagles.
Yes, this was Trestmanesque. No, that’s not an exaggeration.
The only mistake the Bucs made all day came when receiver Mike Evans handed Brady’s 600th career touchdown pass to a fan. Brady dissected the Bears defense, throwing four touchdown passes in the first half and putting the game so out of reach that he was taking selfies with fans before it was over. The Bucs offense gained 408 total yards, and it seemed like more.
Offensively, only one bright spot emerged on one of Nagy’s darkest days. Herbert gained 100 yards on 18 carries, only the third time a running back had cracked the 100-yard barrier against the Bucs since the beginning of the 2019 season. The perceived mistake in pass-blocking on Winfield’s blitz will go down as a learning experience for Herbert. Using excellent field vision, above-average balance and the ability to get downhill quickly, Herbert continued to run like a back the Bears can trust.
Who would've guessed the most impressive Bears rookie offensive starter against the Bucs would be a sixth-rounder taken 217th overall instead of the player dubbed the future franchise quarterback?
Unfortunately, Fields regressed, again, completing 22 of 32 passes for 184 yards and posting a 44.3 passer rating. Communication confusion resurfaced, for example, when Fields said he had a coach tell him in his headset the Bucs had 12 men on the field so he considered it a free play – and threw an interception. He showed enough poor decision-making in the first two quarters to wonder if it made sense to start Andy Dalton in the second half with mercy and safety in mind, but Nagy said he never considered that option.
“It didn’t even cross my mind," Nagy said.
Sure, letting Fields finish the game allowed him to learn the hard way about life as an NFL quarterback, but it also exposed him to injury on every passing play behind an overwhelmed and undermanned offensive line. Remember, the Bears were using their third and fourth right tackles and trailed by at least three touchdowns for the final three quarters. From all indications, Fields escaped unscathed physically, but nobody really knows what damage a beating like this did to his confidence. When people urged the Bears to be patient inserting Fields as the starter to avoid damage to his psyche, this was a big part of the reason.
Fields again held onto the ball too long, such as on fourth-and-4, when he just can’t take a sack. It seems a little unfair to judge Fields too harshly for the quality of his play against a defense that controlled the line of scrimmage as much as the Bucs did. But it also would be naïve to blame all of Fields’ indecision and inconsistency on bad blocking, because he needs to learn to protect the football and release it quicker. He can’t turn the ball over five times. The fairest evaluation neither labels Fields prematurely as a disappointment nor blames his struggles so far on other factors like poor coaching or a lack of weapons.
Drafting Fields raised hopes and expectations. Developing the rookie quarterback matters more than anything else on Nagy’s agenda, perhaps even winning games. You can debate which the Bears should prioritize, but this was a sobering reminder that Fields is a 22-year-old playing in his seventh NFL game.
On the field, Fields looked rattled and out of rhythm. On the sideline, especially in the second half, he appeared less engaged than he likely ever will be once he’s a veteran quarterback instead of a rookie forced to learn on the job. Afterward, Fields vowed to fight through the adversity but acknowledged, “I don’t know how to feel.”
“You can either say, ‘That’s it, I’m gonna stop working,’ or the other way, ‘I’m going to keep working,’ (and)… that’s who I am,’’ Fields said. “I’m never gonna stop."
Nagy sounded just as numbingly determined.
“This is something we’ve got to be able to rebound from," Nagy said. “Let’s make this count as one loss and not four losses."
Tell us why it won’t, coach. Tell us why the same approach will produce different results.
David Haugh is the co-host of the Mully & Haugh Show from 5-9 a.m. weekdays on 670 The Score. Click here to listen. Follow him on Twitter @DavidHaugh.