NEWSLETTER
Chicago Bears Head Coach Matt Nagy complimented Mitch Trubisky’s performance on Sunday, despite the team’s 31-28 overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins.
“I thought he played well,” Nagy told the assembled media at Hard Rock Stadium after the game. “I thought he went through his progressions. He fought, he battled, we didn’t do well the first half. We didn’t score many points, zero in the first half, but you know what our guys did is they battled. They came out, we scored 21 points in eight minutes. And when you do that, that’s a good thing.”
Trubisky didn’t let a slow start keep him down for long – a really great sign of growth and maturation -completing 13 of 17 passes for 227 yards, three touchdowns, and 132.9 passer rating in the second half. Indeed, the Bears moved it effortlessly against the Dolphins defense after intermission. Their first five possessions went: touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown interception (after a questionable penalty), touchdown. The only missteps were the Trubisky red zone interception and Tarik Cohen’s fumble inside the two-minute warning at the end of an 11-yard gain.
Chicago was essentially toying with Miami’s defense. And yet, the play-calling changed in overtime when there was a chance to win the game. Not only did Trubisky not attempt a pass, the Bears trotted out some odd personnel groupings (Benny Cunningham on 2nd-and-8 from the Miami 39 … really?) and didn’t offer any of the misdirection options we had seen in the previous 30 minutes of game-time.
So, why didn’t Nagy call up something a little more aggressive when he had the chance to do so? “We can do that all day long,” Nagy said when asked about his play-calling decision-making. “You go ahead and you throw it and then you’re up here asking me why you took a sack. You could go all day long on that kind of stuff.”
We could do this all day long, but we shouldn’t … and won’t. But a coach whose play card has big bold letters that proclaim “BE YOU” and was seemingly pleased with how his quarterback was leading the offense after halftime probably should have let his quarterback try and win a game rather than scaling back and pinning your hopes on a 53-yard field goal attempt.
This feels way too similar to the aftermath of Week 1 when Nagy shied away from using Jordan Howard when he was blasting through the Packers defense before the Bears’ ultimate demise. We’ve often talked about the quarterback’s growing pains, but we should also keep the perspective that the head coach will have some of his own, too.
The Bears are going to look at their head coach for how to move on from this game. From there, Nagy is going to have to take the lead and set an example where everyone can fall in line and follow, just as he did after the Packers loss. If that was a teachable moment for the Bears, then this is one for the coach.
