(670 The Score) As America witnessed Monday night, Matt Nagy has lost control.
Of his team. Of his job. Of himself.
Once upon a time, Nagy smiled wryly on the Bears sideline staring onto a play sheet on which he famously etched his personal mantra in capital letters: BE YOU.
Be bold, assertive and aggressive. Be in command and control. Be a leader.
Near the end of Nagy’s fourth and surely final season as head coach, that guy is nowhere to be found and certainly wasn’t at Soldier Field during the Bears' 17-9 loss to the Vikings. His smile left with the swagger, long after his confidence started to disappear. The absence of composure came next.
Too often during the Bears' 10th defeat of a lost season, we recognized the ranting, raving Bears coach only by his visor. Irritability has replaced affability as Nagy’s game-day demeanor and a calamitous pace makes it hard to detect any calm. The coolest guy on the sidelines shouldn’t be the 22-year-old rookie quarterback. The emotion can’t be that hard to harness for a coach who always could before times got tough.
“It sucks, losing,’’ Nagy told reporters in the interview room.
He spoke with somber resignation that escaped him during the game.
Time and again, Nagy screamed at officials or nobody in particular, a coach looking as unhinged as his team was undisciplined. In football, like most sports, those two traits usually go wringing hand-in-wringing hand.
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Nothing encapsulated how chaotic it has become for the Bears more than a fourth-and-1 at the Vikings’ 21-yard line with less than a minute left in the third quarter.
Frantically, the Bears rushed to the line of scrimmage. Running back David Montgomery went to the sideline for reasons hard to figure. Receiver Darnell Mooney lined up hastily in the backfield. Justin Fields rolled right on a naked bootleg that fooled nobody until D.J. Wonnum sacked him for a two-yard loss.
If the organization and plan of that fourth-down play was bad, the execution was worse. All of it reflected the frenzy that Nagy embodied in another game defined by futility and frustration. All of it reinforced just how much Nagy’s game-management skills have eroded.
Bears chairman George McCaskey saw enough examples that Nagy has stopped being effective as a head coach to fire him Tuesday if he wants. He has ample reason if he wants to grasp the difficult reality and face it head on, sooner rather than later. The Bears take pride in being one of two NFL franchises never to fire a coach in-season, but rules changes allowing teams to interview head coaching candidates earlier at least gives them something to consider.
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The football has been consistently bad enough to make it a matter of when, not if, the Bears replace Nagy. A stadium that included more empty seats on a mild December night than the McCaskeys prefer make a total organizational overhaul imperative, extending from Nagy to general manager Ryan Pace – and maybe even higher.
As Monday Night Football analyst Brian Griese, a candid Bears quarterback from 2006-'07, aptly put it about McCaskey and team president Ted Phillips, “They need to look in the mirror as well."
And Chicago said, Amen.
Bravo, Brian.
Too many turnovers (three) and penalties (nine) again made the strongest argument for a coaching change. The Bears commit so many dumb penalties that Fields even suggested offenders start running laps as punishment like they did at Ohio State.
Whatever it takes, the Bears must eliminate the concentration lapses that make it hard for them to get out of their own way.
They made five trips inside the 20-yard line – the red zone – and scored only one touchdown, on the final play when Jesper Horsted caught a 19-yard pass from Fields for a touchdown that mattered only to gamblers and fantasy football players.
The other four drives stalled for reasons related to a redundant theme. The Bears don’t know how to win anymore because they have become so conditioned to losing. The culture they like to brag about actually has been anything but exemplary, polluted by public finger-pointing and personal agendas being served. This isn't an environment conducive to developing winning talent or a championship mentality.
After every hard loss, Nagy compliments the Bears for playing hard. Seldom do we see evidence of them playing smart.
The Bears were penalized nine times for 91 yards, including two bad calls: Deon Bush got flagged for unnecessary roughness for breaking up a pass on a football play and Teez Tabor received a penalty for going low on Vikings offensive tackle Brian O’Neill. The missed call on Tabor was a killer because it came on third-and-17.
But the flags on Nagy for arguing and Trevis Gipson and Teven Jenkins for unsportsmanlike conduct have become far too common for the Bears.
“Our guys are fighting their asses off to get off the field," Nagy said. "I expressed my opinion, and I don’t regret it."
No wonder his team behaved as it did.
Jenkins got into a scuffle sticking up for Fields and stood out because he was the lone Bears offensive lineman to do so, an admirable instinct. But as much as I like that attitude, Jenkins also needed to remember before retaliating that he had been a penalty machine in his first two NFL games, so discretion might’ve been the better part of valor.
“I told him I like what he did there and I appreciate it, but at the same time we need to be smart," Fields said. “I think that’s what we need more of. (But) I told him just do it between the whistles.’’
Besides Fields, the Bears need to see the most growth in Jenkins, who committed a holding penalty on the first snap of his first NFL start and continued a troubling trend from his debut against the Packers. It was Jenkins’ fifth penalty in his first 50 professional snaps, an alarming trend.
It presaged plenty of more mistakes typical of young teams.
The first costly turnover came courtesy of Fields, who lost his fifth of 11 fumbles this season when Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr recovered. That’s too many, especially for a quarterback who needs to use running to complement his passing.
The second turnover created even more consternation. Vikings defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson ripped the ball out of David Montgomery’s grip at the Vikings’ 10-yard line, a turnover confirmed when Vikings coach Mike Zimmer threw the red challenge flag.
Then there was the Fields’ thwarted jump pass when he almost coughed up the ball again and the missed easy throw to convert third-and-2.
Whether it was too many penalties or too little precision, the Bears offense functioned like a young team still getting to know each other. In that way, the Bears’ game in Week 15 of 2021 at times resembled the preseason opener.
Fields completed 26 of 39 yards for 285 yards and one touchdown with a 96.6 passer rating. The numbers imply Fields showed more command than he did, with his decision-making still a work in progress. He excelled outside the pocket and proved capable again of taking a big hit but still does things that remind you he’s a rookie.
While the Bears offense consistently stopped itself, the defense did a commendable job of shutting down the Vikings. Playing without its starting secondary and Khalil Mack, the Bears limited the Vikings to 193 total yards and just 61 net passing yards. Robert Quinn and Akiem Hicks, who was playing in his first game since Nov. 8, each had two sacks. Roquan Smith, perhaps inspired by another inexplicable Pro Bowl snub, led the Bears with 10 tackles. But it was the play of the secondary, with names that probably have spent more time on the waiver wire than in headlines, that caused the biggest stir.
“I was really proud of our defense," Nagy said.
All-Pro wide receiver Justin Jefferson only caught four passes for 47 yards and a touchdown, as he was held in check by a pass rush that made him easier to cover for the makeshift secondary.
Cornerback Thomas Graham Jr. made his first NFL start a memorable one. Activated off the practice squad Monday, Graham made seven tackles and defended three passes. Do we applaud the Bears for finding Graham in the sixth round or question them for waiting until the 14th game to give him a look at problem position?
“They’re finding out tonight they have a player," analyst Louis Riddick said in the Monday Night Football booth.
It feels like the Bears are always the last to know.
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.