Matt Nagy’s Identity Crisis and Other Bears Bullets

In a throwback to the mid-to-late ’90s, it was the Bulls bringing us optimism on a Monday when the Bears were breaking our hearts on Sunday.

Because time is a flat circle:

Hope springs eternal in the land of buckets.

•   While making a quick grocery run, I stumbled upon ESPN 1000’s Marc Silverman making an astute observation. Silvy points out that Matt Nagy has gone from firing himself as play-caller, to re-hiring himself as play-caller, to considering giving up those duties (again!) in the span of 10 games. That’s alarming. Even more so when you frame it that all of this has taken place in less than a calendar year. All this brings me back to Nagy’s “Be You” mantra, which is great — in theory — but has been poor in practice. I imagine it is difficult to “Be You” when you, yourself, don’t know who “you” are or want to be. The Bears appear to be at the crossroads of an identity crisis. Not great for a coach in his fourth year and a lame-duck season on the horizon.

•   What does Nagy want to be? Does he want to be a successful head coach like his mentor Andy Reid?  If so, he’ll need to delegate responsibilities to others when things aren’t going right, as Reid is known to do. Is being an ace play-caller his end game? Then he’ll need to go back to the drawing board, re-visit some film, and come up with fresh concepts and ideas. Is the coach the star or is the offense what makes it all go? So many questions, but no answers from the Bears’ top on-the-field football guy. Not to this point at least.

•   Further complicating matters is that these Bears aren’t a competent play-caller short of being what they think they are or can be. As Dan Pompei (The Athletic) puts it: “This would be a good time for Nagy to give the play calling to Bill Lazor. But it’s not just about play calling. The Bears also need better game planning than they had Sunday. And better adjustments. And a better understanding of what they have…” As John Fox would say, it’s all a problem.

•   Some big Charles Dickens energy from the start of Kyle Brandt’s delivery here:

This was the biggest Bears game in two years. It was the ugliest Bears game in 102 years.

•   And to think, that might’ve been on the kinder end of the spectrum when comparing to what was said elsewhere:

•   This, from NFL dot com’s Jeffri Chadiha, drives home a scary point:

“The major problem with what happened to Fields is that it’s hard to be optimistic about immediate next steps. This wasn’t solely about a young signal-caller taking his lumps. It was about all that is wrong with this team colliding at the worst possible moment. It was about the very real likelihood that this season now ends with Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace losing their jobs and the Bears looking for somebody who has a real plan for turning this quarterback into the star that city desperately craves.”

•   Meanwhile, Kellen Moore put on a show with the Cowboys offense that should put him on head-coaching radars in the coming months:

•   Very Bears-y of the Eagles:

•   I guess things could be worse:

•   Jon Gruden might come off as a football goober, but the guy can scheme some things up:

•   Doesn’t this seem odd?

•   Count the Bears as being “in” on pushing civic pride and participation via voting:

•   🎵 Here come the Hawks, the mighty Blackhawks!  🎵

•   You had to figure this was coming after Báez turned it around once he became comfortable enough to tell Mets fans publicly to buzz off:

written by

Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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