Nagy optimism

[Otis Day]

I guess I can jump in. Expectations of Bears fans being set low, hell yes they are! What has happened in the last 20 years for them to be anything but low? IMO, nothing. Yes, they drafted a "top" QB. Yes they drafted a "top" OL. They have a new DC who no one knows how he will work out. This team has been the poster team for inconsistency over the years. I do not have expectations for this team anymore. I wait til the season starts and they are about 4 games in to form any kind of opinion on them. Been disappointed way too many times to drink the proverbial Kool-Aid.

Never was a fan of Mitch, but at the same time feel he got jacked around a little by the staff. I think a coach needs to tailor a game plan around a guy if that is who he has and that is who "the guy" is supposed to be. Was Mitch so bad that the almighty Flip could not get him to improve any? Nagy?

No optimism, a little pessimism, I will wait and see how shit shakes out.

[dplank]

Nagy was hired for a reason, agreed, but he was saddled with a QB that couldn't run his offense. Coaching is not about hammering your system down a player's throat, it is always about putting them in position to succeed.

Unless you are saying that scheme comes before player no matter what, in which case I vehemently disagree. Look at what Brian Daboll is doing with Josh Allen in Buffalo. No play gets implemented unless Allen says he likes and is comfortable with it. You'd think this is common sense...

Suppose Justin Fields can't run Nagy's offense, wouldn't the expectation be for Nagy to tailor the scheme to Fields' strengths (this is precisely what Ryan Day did at Ohio State)? I sure as hell hope so.

Meh. Too simple IMO. The point I'm making is that dumbing down the offense (yes, making it a half field read offense is dumbing it down, we didn't just implement the entire Rams/Niners playbook in the middle of the season dude), is just wasting time. We had a HC/QB mismatch - that's the issue here. And trying to force them together just degrades them both - that's not how you win a super bowl. Just wasting time. The correct answer here is to get your HC/QB combo right as quickly as possible. Any time spent with the mismatch is a waste of time, you aren't winning a SB that way. So I don't care if he could have made a minor improvement, it wouldn't have mattered and only served to delay the necessary moves to get where we need to ultimately get to.

Either Nagy had to go or Mitch had to go. And with Fields, you can't draft him if he doesn't fit your offense so that's a moot point. In fact, that kinda makes my point - Pace wouldn't be drafting just any QB and telling Nagy to "work around his skills" - that's not how it works. He drafted Fields in part because he thinks he can run Nagy's offense. All you're talking about is POST FAILURE, trying to milk some better play out of a bad situation - and I'm just saying you're wasting your time and better off cutting bait and moving on. So 1000% no, absolutely no, you don't change Nagy's offense to suit a poorly drafted QB - you draft to the scheme not the other way around. The answer isn't degrading the offense to suit your shitty QB, the answer is dumping your shitty QB for one that can run your offense. We should have done that after 2019 when it was clear to most Mitch couldn't play, and I suspect we were intending on starting Foles but the whole Covid thing screwed up that plan.

I do ding Pace pretty big for drafting Mitch obviously, but then doubling his trouble by hiring Nagy when after a year they should have known some of Mitch's limitations and that Nagy's offense might be too much for him. Pace brought in the mismatch that caused all this trouble.

So to answer your question directly, what if Fields can't run Nagy's offense? Your answer is have Nagy change his offense. I'm saying the correct answer is to to fire Nagy and pair Fields up with an OC that's better suited to his game. Nagy won't be any good trying to run some other offense that's not his, that's not who he is. Put guys together who actually match one another. When presented this same choice with Mitch/Nagy, I preferred to fire Mitch because he sucks (and the league apparently agrees).

[IE]

The "you need to tailor your offense to the abilities of the QB" assumes that a viable modern NFL offense can be built around that QB. But if the QB has flaws that disallow required capabilities in today's NFL, you haven't met that baseline. And at that point it becomes incredible to point at the coach for not dumbing it down to below NFL level. That's not his job.

[AZ_Bearfan]

Nagy just needs to copy/paste whatever Day sends him right into the Bears playbook. Build the offense from there.

[dplank]

Strangely, KC doesn't run Texas Tech's offense just to accommodate Patrick Mahomes. Maybe GB is running Cal Football concepts?

[The Marshall Plan]

The "you need to tailor your offense to the abilities of the QB" assumes that a viable modern NFL offense can be built around that QB. But if the QB has flaws that disallow required capabilities in today's NFL, you haven't met that baseline. And at that point it becomes incredible to point at the coach for not dumbing it down to below NFL level. That's not his job.

That's true.

It's 2021.

A modern NFL QB needs to throw an accurate deep ball, get to the 2nd and 3rd read with regularity and have some degree of mobility.

Yes we had OL problems. No one denies that. But there are plenty of examples where the OL holds up and Mitch can't get the job done.

Nagy got saddled with one of the greatest draft blunders of all time. Even though I've got issues with how Nagy has handled things in the past with Fields I think it's worth it to give Nagy the benefit of the doubt and let's see what he can do.

[TheWorldBreaker]

You can’t beat good defenses if you can’t keep them honest, which is why Nagy wanted to go deep and why Trubisky tended to play well against garbage teams and was trash against good teams.

They were playing bad teams in your little highlight reel, and they weren’t competitive in the playoffs.

When good teams know you’re not throwing deep they focus on the short and intermediate routes and make the offense slog.

Trubisky just does not have the skill set of a starting NFL QB.

I'm not arguing whether or not Mitch is a NFL QB. That's not the point. The point is that Nagy refused to tailor his offense Mitchell. He forced him to be something he's not. Even if he's NOT a NFL QB because he can't throw it deep, why would you keep encouraging him to do precisely that? If he's not going to hit the deep ball, you're just putting him a risk of a sack or at best a wasted play.

Lazor was much more successful around tailoring the offense around Mitchell's strengths. Consequentially, his sacks went down. Both New Orleans and Green Bay only got one sack a piece against him. His QB rating went way up. Four of his last five games were 95 rating or higher. And I beg to differ that we weren't competitive in the playoffs. We lost one game with a double doink after Mitchell got us into position to win it. And we lost against New Orleans 21-9. Mitchell had a 96.8 rating that game. Lazor also figured out how to get the deep ball out of Mitch. First, he hit a deep one to Mooney against Green Bay by rolling Mitchell out. Against New Orleans he used a Statue of Liberty and Mitchell hit Wims perfectly but Wims dropped it. That's a different game if Wims holds on.

Need I remind you that he did the same thing to Nick Foles. Foles can throw the deep ball from the pocket. Unfortunately, our line at the time was in no condition to protect him long enough to get it done. Foles' sack rate skyrocketed and eventually it affected his accuracy, even when there wasn't the pressure. Remember how Foles said that Nagy would send in a play that he just knew wouldn't work? THAT'S the point. You have to tailor your play calling to what your QB and your offense CAN do. It makes no sense to call plays that are doomed to fail from the start. You get by within the limitations of what you have, and if that makes the offense slog, then you just have to slog through.

He wanted to throw deep because good defenses would often stack the box and play press or even some zone coverages to make the short and intermediate stuff difficult.

If he did what you suggest and never threw deep that would have only compounded the issues and made those short and intermediate throws more difficult.

Conceding most of the field to the defense so they don’t actually have to cover it makes running an offense much harder. If you never throw deep, teams will notice and make you pay for it.

And I’m sorry but when a player is streaking down the field wide open and the QB misses him by 5 yards, that’s not a bad play call. It’s poor execution. If the QB is so terrible you don’t want him to ever throw 20+ yards you’d literally be better off bringing in someone off the street.

Foles’ confidence issues were a product of a bad offensive line due to injuries and the delusional belief in Coward. Foles won the ATL game (adding a W Trubisky didn’t deserve to his resume) with Nagy calling lots of deep passes for the comeback.

Maybe he could have done a better job with the depleted line but when you’re offensive line can’t effectively run block or protect the QB there’s not a lot you can do as a play caller.

And Nagy actually did cater the offense to Trubisky in terms of making the reads as simple as possible and eliminating much of the playbook for him. Recall that Allen Robinson mentioned the whole playbook was open with Foles.

While Nagy was obviously in a rut and frustrated, so changing play callers was a good idea, Trubisky’s “success” had more to do with playing bad teams than any ingenious shift in play calling. As evidenced by he and the offenses struggling as soon as they played good teams again.

[RichH55]

Mitch was actually pretty good in 2018

Granted - there were people even then concerned it was too much of the legs rather than the arm - and was that sustainable (It was not)

But a 71 ESPN QBR? That's a good year. It's not elite - but it's good. That was the only year you could call Mitch good though - the other years not in that department

But in terms of dying on the Mitch Hill (which like half the time was merely pointing out: You know he's better than Chase Daniel right?) - if every year was 2018 for Mitch - he's still the QB here. (*)

(*) You can't ignore 2019 and 2020 though - which is why he's gone, why he's a bust, etc. But for some reason people are posting like 2018 Mitch was bad

[RichH55]

And Nagy actually did cater the offense to Trubisky in terms of making the reads as simple as possible and eliminating much of the playbook for him. Recall that Allen Robinson mentioned the whole playbook was open with Foles.

Does it matter that the playbook that Foles magically opened up - kind of sucked?

There is also a reason Foles isn't starting anywhere either - and it's his play

[IE]

QBR is partially a function of the performance of the overall team performance.

It is insane to say that 2018 Mitch would still be QB here now unless you ALSO say that the Bears would sustain an all time great D (not just #1 for that year but top 20 ALL TIME D) for this entire time. Which would have required Fangio and all those key players to stick, or amazing unprecedented re-tooling every year to sustain that excellence. But then we'd be admitting that it was never Mitch to begin with. Which makes people sort of mad for some reason.

At a game-level view of 2018, Mitch had one game - a single game - where he performed well against a good team (the hope Packers game - one of his only 2-3 quality wins in his entire career). He WON in spite of himself against several good teams, thanks to the D. But only one win did he actually rate well against a winning team. That is horrible.

[dplank]

QBR weights TD/INT pretty heavily in it's calculation, so the fact that the defense created a league leading 36 turnovers which very frequently placed our offense in enemy territory as a starting point clearly helped boost Mitch's QBR. And then you combine that with rookie Nagy and his zany red zone gimmicks that worked and it boosted that QBR even more (again because his TD's were inflated). What is clear to any neutral observer now that we have the benefit of hindsight is that the 2018 Mitch QBR is a statistical outlier and is not who he actually is. 2019 and 2020 Mitch is who he is. It's not like he had BAD defenses in 2019/2020 that artificially suppressed his QBR in any way, he just lost the benefit of leading the league in turnovers and had to move the offense into enemy territory on his own - he failed to do so. And what IE and myself keep pointing out isn't that 2018 Mitch was some turd, he can't be blamed for taking advantage of the artificial boost he was given - he took advantage of it like he should have. The point is that his stats were in fact artificially inflated and the signs were there that he was going to fail because anytime he played a good team and didn't have the benefit of a defense propping up his stats, he failed in spectacular fashion. Often still netting a W even while playing terribly - our D was just THAT good.

Mitch blows, his Bears story is now written and behind us. And I just don't care about ex-Bears. I care about Nagy because he's still our coach. Any fan that wants to defend Mitch and tear down Nagy should move to Wisconsin.

[The Marshall Plan]

Mitch blows, his Bears story is now written and behind us. And I just don't care about ex-Bears. I care about Nagy because he's still our coach. Any fan that wants to defend Mitch and tear down Nagy should move to Wisconsin.

That's one of the best things I've read here.

[The Grizzly One]

...Mitch blows, his Bears story is now written and behind us. And I just don't care about ex-Bears. I care about Nagy because he's still our coach. Any fan that wants to defend Mitch and tear down Nagy should move to Wisconsin.

I just want to say it's ot an either or. Yea, Mitch stunk. Doesn't mean Nagy doesn't smell bad too. I am very pleased that Mitch is gone. Very Hopeful with Fields. I very much wanted Nagy gone too.

Again, I hope he (Nagy) proves me wrong.

[Z Bear]

A QB that misses open receivers, either with his eyes or the pass, is going to make any coach look bad. I do fault Nagy for giving Coward as much time as he did, but most of the wasted yards on this team the last 3 years fall squarely on #10's shoulders.

[dplank]

The point of this thread was to push a little Nagy optimism heading into the season. He may very well still fail, but watching it turn into a Mitch apology tour is frustrating. Mitch is gone, his tenure was beyond any shadow of doubt a failure, why is there any loyalty/need to defend him still? It’s over. Nagy still has at least one (hopefully many more) chapters left to his Bears story. And we should all want that whole issue to be Mitch not Nagy because, ahem, we’re Bears fans? And that would mean logically that Nagy can succeed with a good QB, which would be good for Bears fans.

[Yogi da Bear]

Yogi's argument is basically the football equivalent of "why dont they build the entire plane out of the black box?"

No, my argument is more like, "why take a plane that's going to crash, when you can take a train?"

Here's what some of you guys seem to want to do:



Now, before you say we couldn't win a Super Bowl the way we were going, don't forget 2018. I really think if it wasn't for the double doink, we would have been a Super Bowl team that year. But rather than doing what Mitchell did best that year, and expanding on it, Nagy went in a different direction and tried to make him much more of a pocket passer. There were ways to get Mitchell to get the ball deep--have him throw on the move where he didn't think about it (last year's shot to Mooney); use a gimmick also where Mitch wasn't thinking about it (the shot to Wims that was dropped). In the meantime, you play to his strengths: his running ability, the medium pass, the dump off.

Think of the way that Baltimore has handled Lamar Jackson. They completely tailored the offense towards him and look at what they made him--a friggin' league MVP. And they accomplished that while Jackson has only had two three hundred yard passing games in his three year career, whereas he's had 25 games where he passed for fewer than 200 yards! Yet Baltimore wins, and Jackson has made the playoffs all three years he's been in the league. THAT is successfully tailoring an offense to a a player. And yes, consequentially, they are a dangerous team.

So don't tell me it can't be done. It makes a whole lot more sense than trying to make a QB something that he's not. They aren't trying to make Jackson strictly a pocket passer.

[dplank]

You have to crash a few planes to learn how to build and fly one Yogi. If you don't ever make the effort to switch, you'll be stuck on trains forever (like the Bears have been stuck in 1985 forever). We have correctly started to pivot our franchise to the modern game, offense first. That 2018 defense was magical but you can't recreate that consistently, not the turnover component that drove so much of the success. The construct of the game today just doesn't allow for it. I for one am happy that we are making this shift, we've been trying for 35 years to recreate 1985 and I'm sick of it. It's time we run a modern offense and take advantage of how the game is designed/called now - pass heavy offensive minded football. We hired an offensive minded HC to execute this pivot, but your still stuck in 1985 because you got a flashback in 2018 - I get it, it was great to see, but it's not the modern game and not where we are going. Time to move on, and Mitch ain't able to play that game, so bye bye best of luck in Buffalo.

So the point that folks keep making here isn't whether or not Nagy could have done more to help Mitch, sure he could have. The point is why bother? You're wasting your time dumbing shit down if your end goal is to shift to a modern, offensive focused football team. That's what Nagy was brought here to do and everyone knew it would take some time. I disagree completely rolling things backwards and stunting that team growth towards where we are going as some temporary stop gap because we had a QB that couldn't play. It's just a waste of time. One of the reasons I think both Dalton and Fields will have immediate success is because this offense is now in it's 4th year, most of the players besides the two QB's have been in this offense for a while and know it now which will make the QB's just MUCH easier. Take your lumps, crash a few planes, and come out the other side ready to compete.

Andy Reid did what Nagy is doing, they don't run Texas Tech football. They run Andy Reid's offense, and they spent their time getting Mahomes up to speed executing that offense. The problem here isn't Nagy, the problem is the QB/HC mismatch that Ryan Pace created. Lamar Jackson is an interesting story, but a massive outlier and not a path anyone should be modeling.

[G08]

Yogi's argument is basically the football equivalent of "why dont they build the entire plane out of the black box?"

No, my argument is more like, "why take a plane that's going to crash, when you can take a train?"

I really don't understand why some posters here refuse to think building an offense around a QB's skills is a bad thing.

Think of the way that Baltimore has handled Lamar Jackson. They completely tailored the offense towards him and look at what they made him--a friggin' league MVP. And they accomplished that while Jackson has only had two three hundred yard passing games in his three year career, whereas he's had 25 games where he passed for fewer than 200 yards! Yet Baltimore wins, and Jackson has made the playoffs all three years he's been in the league. THAT is successfully tailoring an offense to a a player. And yes, consequentially, they are a dangerous team.

So don't tell me it can't be done. It makes a whole lot more sense than trying to make a QB something that he's not. They aren't trying to make Jackson strictly a pocket passer.

John Harbaugh wouldn't sign off on trading up to draft Lamar Jackson UNTIL his coaching staff presented to him the offense they would run for him.

What a fucking concept, huh?

Anyway, I hear what you're saying loud and clear, bud. Good luck selling it to the others here.

[dplank]

Because it's counter productive in the grand scheme G08. Would you want Nagy designing an offense for ME or YOU to run? I mean, sure he could do it, but the net result would be poor. The better decision is not to work around a point of failure, it's to REMOVE the point of failure. And again, no one is saying Nagy couldn't have done a little better adapting to Mitch's shortcomings, but to design an entire offense around your weakest link and neuter the offense that you just hired a new coach to bring to your franchise, is just moronic IMO.

Per usual, I think we are arguing a completely different points. Everyone has already agreed that Nagy could have done a little better working around Mitch while he was stuck with him. And unless I have misread your acumen, I don't think you're arguing that we should have stuck with Mitch for 2021, right?

I've been really clear that I blame Pace most. You don't draft Mitch, then turn around and hire a HC that's so mismatched with Mitch's skill set. That is the heart of the issue, one of them had to go. Mitch is now gone, so I'm staying optimistic on Nagy until that's no longer viable lol.

[G08]

I've been really clear that I blame Pace most. You don't draft Mitch, then turn around and hire a HC that's so mismatched with Mitch's skill set. That is the heart of the issue, one of them had to go. Mitch is now gone, so I'm staying optimistic on Nagy until that's no longer viable lol.

It's foolish to draft your franchise QB knowing that you're going to fire the head coach and offensive coaching staff after the following season.

That being said, I'm sure Matt Nagy sold himself to Pace by saying he could have success with Trubisky as his starter (and I suppose he did in a sense).

[G08]

Because it's counter productive in the grand scheme G08. Would you want Nagy designing an offense for ME or YOU to run? I mean, sure he could do it, but the net result would be poor. The better decision is not to work around a point of failure, it's to REMOVE the point of failure. And again, no one is saying Nagy couldn't have done a little better adapting to Mitch's shortcomings, but to design an entire offense around your weakest link and neuter the offense that you just hired a new coach to bring to your franchise, is just moronic IMO.

Let's take Trubisky completely out of this discussion and make this relevant to our current roster:

I want our coaches to design an offense that caters to Justin Fields' strengths; don't you? I'm strongly of the opinion that what makes a coach great is their ability to adjust and adapt to the talent around them, not the other way around.


Would fans rather Matt Nagy try to force-feed his offense down Fields' throat, regardless of how clear it is he can't handle it, or would you rather Matt Nagy design an offense that fits every single one of Justin Fields' strengths?

I'd hope to God every single person on this board would say the latter, but after going though this thread I have my doubts.

[dplank]

I think you’re looking at it too narrowly and thus presenting a false choice.

[G08]

I think you’re looking at it too narrowly and thus presenting a false choice.

Really? I feel like it's pretty straight forward:

A. Run Nagy's system no matter what, even if Justin Fields won't reach his ceiling in said system

B. Have Nagy design an offense that tailors to and accentuates Justin Fields' talents


I'm picking B every single time.

[The Marshall Plan]

I've been really clear that I blame Pace most. You don't draft Mitch, then turn around and hire a HC that's so mismatched with Mitch's skill set. That is the heart of the issue, one of them had to go. Mitch is now gone, so I'm staying optimistic on Nagy until that's no longer viable lol.

It's foolish to draft your franchise QB knowing that you're going to fire the head coach and offensive coaching staff after the following season.

That being said, I'm sure Matt Nagy sold himself to Pace by saying he could have success with Trubisky as his starter (and I suppose he did in a sense).

You don’t control the year in which you have the #3 overall pick. When you have it, and you need a QB (which the Bears CLEARLY did), you take a QB.

Are you trying to say the Bears should’ve kept Fox and Loggains longer? You can’t be saying that. IDK, maybe you are.

And regarding the whole tailoring your offense thing.

There’s a huge difference between tailoring your offense to Lamar Jackson who is a dual threat QB with a fantastic college career playing for John Harbaugh who has a defensive background versus Mitch playing for Matt Nagy who has an offense background.

When you hire a Nagy you install his offense. That’s why they hired him. And if the QB can’t run the offense at an acceptable level, even though it’s toned down, you get rid of him and find somebody who can do it better.

[G08]

It's foolish to draft your franchise QB knowing that you're going to fire the head coach and offensive coaching staff after the following season.

That being said, I'm sure Matt Nagy sold himself to Pace by saying he could have success with Trubisky as his starter (and I suppose he did in a sense).

You don’t control the year in which you have the #3 overall pick. When you have it, and you need a QB (which the Bears CLEARLY did), you take a QB.

Sure, but if you know you are taking a QB and launching Fox/Loggains after the 2017 season, you're better off canning them a year earlier. Know who our head coach could have been if we made that move? Kyle Shanahan.

Are you trying to say the Bears should’ve kept Fox and Loggains longer? You can’t be saying that. IDK, maybe you are.

Nope. If I was saying that, I would have said it.

And regarding the whole tailoring your offense thing.

There’s a huge difference between tailoring your offense to Lamar Jackson who is a dual threat QB with a fantastic college career playing for John Harbaugh who has a defensive background versus Mitch playing for Matt Nagy who has an offense background.

When you hire a Nagy you install his offense. That’s why they hired him. And if the QB can’t run the offense at an acceptable level, even though it’s toned down, you get rid of him and find somebody who can do it better.

John Harbaugh has a Special Teams background, not a defensive background.

[dplank]

I think you’re looking at it too narrowly and thus presenting a false choice.

Really? I feel like it's pretty straight forward:

A. Run Nagy's system no matter what, even if Justin Fields won't reach his ceiling in said system

B. Have Nagy design an offense that tailors to and accentuates Justin Fields' talents


I'm picking B every single time.

C. Replace QB

D. Replace Coach

I’m in for C right now

[The Grizzly One]

Really? I feel like it's pretty straight forward:

A. Run Nagy's system no matter what, even if Justin Fields won't reach his ceiling in said system

B. Have Nagy design an offense that tailors to and accentuates Justin Fields' talents


I'm picking B every single time.

C. Replace QB

D. Replace Coach

I’m in for C right now

I wanted

E. Replace QB and Coach

[dplank]

C. Replace QB

D. Replace Coach

I’m in for C right now

I wanted

E. Replace QB and Coach

There's also F. Replace GM and G. Replace GM and Coach

I'm at C now, but will move to G if we flop again offensively this year.

[The Marshall Plan]

You don’t control the year in which you have the #3 overall pick. When you have it, and you need a QB (which the Bears CLEARLY did), you take a QB.

Sure, but if you know you are taking a QB and launching Fox/Loggains after the 2017 season, you're better off canning them a year earlier. Know who our head coach could have been if we made that move? Kyle Shanahan.

Are you trying to say the Bears should’ve kept Fox and Loggains longer? You can’t be saying that. IDK, maybe you are.

Nope. If I was saying that, I would have said it.

And regarding the whole tailoring your offense thing.

There’s a huge difference between tailoring your offense to Lamar Jackson who is a dual threat QB with a fantastic college career playing for John Harbaugh who has a defensive background versus Mitch playing for Matt Nagy who has an offense background.

When you hire a Nagy you install his offense. That’s why they hired him. And if the QB can’t run the offense at an acceptable level, even though it’s toned down, you get rid of him and find somebody who can do it better.

John Harbaugh has a Special Teams background, not a defensive background.

And do you believe Mitch could’ve run Kyle Shanahan’s offense? Does Shanahan’s offense have zero need for balls thrown over 20 yards and the throw always goes to the first read?

With Harbaugh. He was a special teams coach that became a defensive backs coach. Care to answer the question or this your way of trolling or dodging again?

[G08]

Really? I feel like it's pretty straight forward:

A. Run Nagy's system no matter what, even if Justin Fields won't reach his ceiling in said system

B. Have Nagy design an offense that tailors to and accentuates Justin Fields' talents


I'm picking B every single time.

C. Replace QB

D. Replace Coach

I’m in for C right now

I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly... you're saying if Fields can't run Nagy's offense, you'd choose to get rid of Fields?