The Chicago Bears begin their preseason slate of games later today. And when they do so, they’ll be seeing a familiar face.
Somehow … Matt Nagy has returned.
That’s right. In addition to a Roquan Smith fueled week of drama, the Bears have an old flame alert on their hands.
Seven months after being fired by the Bears, Nagy is back at the scene of the crime (so, so many crimes against offensive football and player development) as the Chiefs Quarterbacks Coach.
Patrick Finley (Sun-Times) caught up with the former Bears coach during a trip to Chiefs camp. As was the case back when Nagy was addressing his departure from Chicago earlier in the offseason, he was reflective and came off as being humbled by the experience. Fair enough. I suppose that is how you’re supposed to feel after how that stint came to a close.
But in the most Nagy way ever, his explanation about his time with the Bears was what you would’ve expected.
Would he change anything? Nah:
‘‘I wouldn’t change anything . . . of those four years [of] experiences,’’ he said. ‘‘I’d change a lot of what happened, wishing we’d won more and could have done more, but I learned a lot. That part, I wouldn’t change. I think I gotta be able to self-reflect on where I went wrong and how I could have been better.”
Well, except:
“You look back and say, ‘I would change this, I would change that,'” Nagy said. “There are different silos that I look at and say, ‘OK, I would probably do something different here.’ And then you can get into the schematics, the X’s and O’s, the personnel, etc.
But at he same point in time, you learn from that: ‘OK, if I were to go back and have that opportunity, would I handle it the same way?’ Maybe fore some instances, yes; maybe fore some, no. In the end, for us, it just didn’t end how we wanted it to. That’s OK. We move on.”
Yep, that’s the Nagy we knew all too well in Chicago.
In the end, I’m glad to have had that experience. For better or worse, those four years gave us so much we can take away and learn from moving forward. And I think we can admit now that the 2018 season, while a one-off of success, was a heckuva good time. Who wouldn’t want to re-live that again (save for the doinkage). As for what Nagy should expect upon returning to the Soldier Field turf, I fully expect Nagy to get booed into smithereens by fans who were chanting for his firing just for months leading into his January dismissal. But also? I expect this to present the closure Bears fans need to fully move into the Matt Eberflus era, which begins in earnest today.