Matt Nagy is taking back what’s his.
The Chicago Bears head coach is once again the lead offensive play-caller:
Matt Nagy will call the plays in 2021.
— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) April 2, 2021
#Bears HC Matt Nagy right now on who’s calling the plays this year: “I’m gonna be the one calling the plays this year … the fun part right now is building what we wanna do better… getting that right.” Excited about the collaboration with his staff.
— StaceyDales (@StaceyDales) April 2, 2021
On the one hand, the Bears offense found success down the stretch with Bill Lazor calling plays in Nagy’s offense. Lazor’s scheme struck a balance in the run game, capitalized on Mitchell Trubisky’s athleticism, moved the chains, and scored points. The late-season improvement came with a noteworthy caveat: Chicago was facing — by far — the easiest defensive matchups among all quarterbacks when Trubisky was under center. This isn’t to take away from Trubisky’s performance. Instead, it’s to provide perspective to what we were seeing.
In other words, it might be less about who’s calling the plays and more about who’s executing them and against whom.
Nagy should be calling plays. It’s *HIS* offense. And unlike Trubisky, Andy Dalton has been around long enough to understand the concepts being thrown his way and how to diagnose them when going to the line of scrimmage to dissect a defense pre-snap. This should also provide an opportunity to give us a full assessment of what Nagy’s offense is supposed to be. Hiding the deficiencies of a quarterback with a watered-down version of an offense should be a thing of the past. No more cutting the field in half because the quarterback excels exclusively in one-read throws.
You want to prove your offense looking as woeful as it did was a product of who was running it than who was calling it? Well, the floor is yours, Matt Nagy. And if you can’t do that, then the Bears will likely be looking for a new head coach and play-caller in January.