(670 The Score) Whether out of desperation or inspiration, Matt Nagy salvaged a wild-card playoff spot for the 8-8 Bears last season by firing his play-caller.
Nagy never would put it in such blunt terms, but that’s the way it really went down. Reluctantly, the Bears head coach ceded play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Bill Lazor after losing four of six games following a 3-0 start. After a 19-13 loss to the Vikings in Lazor's first game calling the plays, the Bears' offense then improved, scoring at least 25 points in five straight games after averaging 19.8 through the first nine. A softer schedule contributed to the progress, sure, but so did a commitment to a more conventional, less cute offensive approach. Under Lazor, the Bears appeared to have turned a philosophical corner offensively.
Then Nagy all but pretended that never happened. Last spring, he quietly announced plans to call plays again himself despite late-season evidence making the decision seem dubious. He seemingly had fixed the offense by expanding Lazor’s role but then went back to what the Bears did when it was broken.
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Nagy’s subtle-but-significant shift of play-calling duties back to himself has been one of the more overlooked aspects of the Bears' preseason, due largely to Chicago’s daily obsession with the quarterback situation. But Nagy calling plays again is relevant and seems related to why the Bears have remained dedicated to starting veteran quarterback Andy Dalton against the Rams in the season opener Sunday regardless of how ready rookie Justin Fields looks.
It makes me think Nagy still believes the star of the Bears' offense is the offense itself.
Let’s rephrase that: It makes me fear Nagy still believes the star of the Bears' offense is the offense itself.
Spoiler alert: It isn’t.
Believing otherwise potentially diminishes how dangerous Fields can become. Nothing about the sinewy 6-foot-3-inch, 227-pounder suggests the Bears need to overcomplicate matters with the confines of a Nagy scheme he occasionally has compared to a college course. Given the enormous playmaking potential of Fields and his knack for improvisation, the Bears would be wise to add independent study to his offensive curriculum.
In Kansas City, is it still Andy Reid’s offense that carries the Chiefs or is it truly Patrick Mahomes? Ever hear anybody compliment the scheme Russell Wilson runs in Seattle? Whose system is Justin Herbert executing for the Chargers? How about Josh Allen in Buffalo?
Special players come with different rules. Special only begins to describe what the Bears have in Fields, a transcendent quarterback capable of creating enough oohs and aahs to often make the Xs and Os moot – a star possibly bright enough to outshine any scheme.
In the glory years of the Lovie Smith era at Halas Hall, around the time the Bears played in Super Bowl XLI, defensive players liked to say something similar about Smith’s vaunted Cover-2. The group included several Pro Bowl-caliber players and a future Hall of Famer yet, to a man, guys like Brian Urlacher and Charles Tillman and Lance Briggs insisted the star of Smith’s defense was the defense itself. They bought into that notion publicly, even if privately everybody knew the truth about Smith’s simple-but-effective Cover-2 scheme was that only the players were special.
To his credit, Smith always understood that. Over time, most NFL coaches come to realize their schemes look smarter when executed by bigger, faster and stronger players – better players overall. Most NFL coaches eventually accept and adopt a less-is-more approach and trust talent to prevail.
I wonder where Nagy is in that evolution as he begins his fourth season.
Remember, Nagy came to the Bears known as an offensive guru whom several other teams wanted to hire and, through the first half of his first season in 2018, it was easy to see why. Since that point, however, Nagy objectively has been a better head coach than play-caller. His team’s winning percentage (.583) looks more impressive than his offense’s scoring average (22.3).
The failure of Mitchell Trubisky to meet expectations involved Nagy’s inability to tailor game plans around his quarterback’s abilities as much Trubisky’s shortcomings. Trubisky’s talent and Nagy’s scheme never meshed. Yet even now, after the organization rightfully moved on from Trubisky, Nagy stays stubbornly wedded to the notion that his scheme offers the Bears their best chance at success even if you’ll never see it presented in those terms on the team’s YouTube channel.
Listen closely though, and you can hear more clues than declarations, like when Nagy reminded everyone last week how excited he was because he now had players in their third and fourth seasons running his offense. Fact check: Only three projected offensive starters – Allen Robinson, Cody Whitehair and James Daniels – have played for Nagy since he became Bears head coach, so any talk about continuity sounds more like hyperbole.
Dalton arrived in March because of his familiarity with Lazor and the scheme. Fields came in April, surprisingly, because general manager Ryan Pace couldn’t resist the chance to draft a franchise quarterback who had fallen to No. 11 overall. Dalton epitomizes the steady, serviceable veteran who understands every nuance of Nagy’s scheme, his smiling face with the ginger hair appearing next to the NFL dictionary definition of system quarterback. Fields represents the 21st-century transformation of the position, an uncommonly gifted athlete who can run as well as he can throw and articulate the reasons why he embarrassed any given cornerback or pass rusher. Dalton is the corporate training video everybody hopes will end soon, while Fields is the Tik Tok post whose natural panache makes it go viral.
The contrast in the quarterbacks’ styles couldn’t be starker, which makes it easier to understand why Nagy the play-caller/collector chose Dalton over Fields for Week 1. Against a Rams defense that ranked No. 1 in 2020, the Bears must place Dalton’s experience ahead of Fields’ explosiveness – scheme over skill, if you will. If you question that decision, you might reconsider after watching Aaron Donald highlights.
Besides, the Bears can't play Fields until they have zero doubt in his ability to command the huddle, diagnose the defense and read the blitz. Fields’ most indelible play of preseason – even deeper than his 20-yard gem of a touchdown pass to Jesper Horsted – came when unblocked Bills linebacker Andre Smith knocked his helmet off on a sack. With an offensive line among the NFL’s weakest and which features a 39-year-old left tackle the Bears talked off a fishing boat, the reward of playing Fields prematurely hardly outweighs the health risks. What’s the big hurry to see a rookie who I expect still will be starting for the Bears sooner rather than later, as early as the first month of the season?
It bears repeating that this franchise never has had a quarterback like Fields. The Bears got closer to the Super Bowl the day they drafted him, but they’re not close to being a Super Bowl contender today. That’s an important distinction to make because it informs the smartest way to use Fields -- deliberately. Desperately rushing Fields can develop bad habits he never breaks (i.e. David Carr et al). As dynamic as Fields is with his feet after eluding the rush, the next step involves making more plays with his arm in the pocket. The NFL quarterbacks who make money and win titles excel in the pocket, the only thing we really didn’t see Fields do much in limited preseason action. Physically, Fields proved he can do everything else at a high level and, to borrow coach-speak, the only thing he lacks is reps. The outsized local reaction to Fields leading the Bears in preseason rushing and passing yards stemmed from pent-up exasperation more than execution.
Bears fans have earned the right to react however they want to the arrival of Fields, but patience is recommended. In the grand scheme of things, the won-loss record of the season that begins Sunday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., matters less to the Bears than the proper development of Fields. They can’t screw this up. They need to keep Fields healthy, use him wisely and factor the future into every decision about the present.
Whenever Nagy decides to start Fields, he has to be as ready as his young quarterback for the promise that implies. He must recognize and accept the Bears have a potential star in their midst.
And it’s not their offense.
David Haugh is the co-host of the Mully & Haugh Show from 5-9 a.m. weekdays on 670 The Score. Click here to listen. Follow him on Twitter @DavidHaugh.