Earlier today, former Chicago Sun-Times journalist Mark Konkol reported that Thanksgiving will mark Matt Nagy‘s final game as head coach (via Patch.com). For his part, Nagy says “that is not accurate,” (Twitter link via Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic). 
“My focus is on these players and Detroit, and that’s it,” Nagy said (via ESPN.com’s Kevin Seifert). “That’s my job as a head coach and a leader, is to do that. These players have been amazing. They’ve been great. You have this quick turnaround after a loss like [Sunday’s to the Ravens], and now here you go. The only thing we can do is focus on the now and do everything we can. Thursday is going to be here quickly.”
Still, Nagy says that he has not received any assurances from owner George McCaskey or GM Ryan Pace this week. Left to fend off the rumors by himself, Nagy claims that he won’t be distracted by the speculation.
“We all have our own decisions as to how we do things, and I think this whole entire time, for me and for ownership, we’ve had great communication..[We’re] focused on Detroit. That’s what it is,” said the head coach.
After dropping five straight, the Bears are 3-7 and en route to a lost season. It’s a sharp drop from Nagy’s first 12-4 season at the helm, or even his back-to-back 8-8 campaigns. Assuming no decision has been made yet, a win on Thursday could help cool down the hot seat. On that note, Nagy also confirmed that the Bears will start Andy Dalton while Justin Fields recovers from his rib injury.
When you look at continually bad teams, you have to place blame on ownership at some point. Jets, Jags, Bears, Fins, Lions et al. They change office staff, coaching staff, and players non stop but just can’t get to 500 for some reason.
As you’ve correctly pointed out in some past posts, there is no incentive for owners to produce winners. The only way to change that is to re-structure revenue sharing based on performance but the owners would never stand for that.
Yep! Daniel Synder has run DC 7 feet under and still profits every single year for some 20 odd years. Shad is one of the fastest owners to lose a 100 games, do you see him sweating?
Nice to hear that Naggy has no plans to fire himself. Maybe the GM is the one who should have been asked.. That being said, this staff sure seems to be getting nothing out of their rookie QB, and Dalton flat sucks. So I wouldn’t expect things to turn around this season.
The GM needs to go as well.
Dalton’s been leaps and bounds better than their rookie, so his sitting on the bench is actually odder to me than starting the guy who struggles to throw for a hundred yards in a game to begin with.
Every time we hear about something like this, it’s the exact opposite. “He’s our starting QB” “we aren’t going to fire this coach” etc.
If he loses on Thursday he’s gone.
Why? Who replaces him? An assistant who has himself contributed to the team’s collapse? Consider the loss against the Ravens. Who was responsible for the blown coverage which led to the eventual winning score? The player? The defensive coordinator? The head coach? And what about the fact that one team’s tragedy is another team’s triumph? Would you fire every coach whose team loses on Thursday, or just every coach whose record is above five hundred over three seasons, with one playoff appearance?
You lose to Detroit lead by Boyle, it’s time to say goodbye.
2 guys come to mind right away for the interim.
Bill Lazor- Team played better when he started calling the plays and being more involved. Give him a couple games to be the lead voice. No way he is the lead guy moving forward.
John DeFillipo- Wasn’t long ago he was on the Head Coach list. Once again not long term but works.
Getting rid of Nagy after a demoralizing loss would be needed. Fan base has already turned on him and the locker room can’t be that far behind. I get his above .500 record but what has he done lately.
Agreed. That unorganized shitshow against the Ravens was a byproduct of the head coach. The buck stops there, period. They won 12 games in ’17 because Fangio’s dominant defense gave that lame offense great field position time after time and a huge number of turnovers. They haven’t sniffed that kind of success since Fangio left. Nagy and Pace both need to go.
Lazor is a viable option, but only if Dalton starts. If not, cleaning house may really the only other choice. Usually this is a knee jerk sort of reaction, but it’s hard to imagine a future with the current makeup of the team that sees Fields being a long term success. Either Dalton starts until Fields is ready, which could happen, or the current regime just isn’t it and a new regime will be necessary to get Fields up to speed. Or, worst of all, Fields really is that bad and the current regime screwed up royally by pinning their hopes to him. Those are the only real possibilities.
In any scenario, Nagy has at the very least set his team back significantly and Pace has missed on his opportunities to help. Again, that’s at the very least. The real question is how much blame Nagy and/or Pace deserve for Fields’ lack of production, because that will determine the rookie’s value to the next regime going forward.
My head is spinning from all these questions
How would he know? The owner is not going to approach him and say “hey btw gonna fire you soon lol”.
According to Mike Florio, they did. But, of course, that’s Mike Florio…
Too Bad, Just shows the owners are just as dumb as the coaches.
How Ryan pace still has a job is beyond me
I don’t disagree, but you could say that about roughly half of the GMs in the league.
Who cares? The Bears are always 3 or 4 years too late on personnel moves and hiring decisions. This organization is terrible at the business of football. The fans should hold ownership accountable by boycotting. Don’t watch the games—in person and tv/streaming. Spend zero dollars on memorabilia. They’re just not worth the energy.
The Bears are too cheap to pay a guy to go home, they’ll wait out his contract and then hire Marc Trestman 3.0 instead of a coach with any real NFL head coaching experience because doing that might be expensive.
Which coach with NFL head coaching experience would you hire?
Really depends on who’s out there, do the Seahawks move on from Pete Carroll, if the Steelers collapse again do they fire Tomlin (I wouldn’t fire him but my Steeler’s fan buddies want him gone). I personally would have fired Nagy a few years ago when the Trubisky train was clearly off the tracks and would have gone after Bruce Arians to try and turn Trubs around. I would even take Mike Zimmer if the Vikings move on from him. We’ll just have to see.
Well, the argument in favor of Nagy with Trubisky was that he inherited him and tried to make it work. And, in fairness, they did make the playoffs. Thing is, Fields is supposedly his personal pick. If it can’t work with your selected guy, you’re kind of running low on explanations.
#SaveFields #FireNagy
Retaining Nick Foles, bringing in Andy Dalton, and THEN drafting a QB shows how fouled up the thought process is in the Bear’s front office.
If they lose to Detroit, he might as well pack up that desk when he gets back to Chicago.
Ryan Pace is a JOKE. Bears fans deserve better.
Why do they DESERVE better?
This is what happens when you hire a HC specifically to develop a QB prospect. Nagy failed with Trubisky and it was all downhill from there.
The problem with the Bears is that they have a bean counter as the President of franchise. They need an astute football man that has a long term plan they have not had a person in charge since Jim Finks.
Truth.
You can’t fire Nagy without walking GM Pace out the door first. Besides the plethora of bad picks, trading up (except the Fields trade) Pace has handed out bad contracts and in turn left some players swinging in the wind (Robinson/Hicks). Robinson/Hicks play now not to get hurt before Free Agency and you had the chance to trade them and you overvalued them. I hope whoever is the next head coach it doesn’t come from a team that has an elite QB like Mahomes or Rodgers as those guys tend to ride the coat tails of their talents QBs. I’m all in on Byron Leftwich for Fields future mentor and head coach.
Oh, so he’s fired so fired.