Can we trust Nagy and Company?

[Hoog]

So the new toy, JFields, is not Andy Dalton, he isn't Mitch, he isn't anything we have seen or had here in Chicago. My hope is that Nagy and company don't try to make him those things. JFields, is a special talent and should be used as it. Let him do his thing he did in college. Find what he does best and utilize it. Nagy didn't do this with Mitch, he forced his system on Mitch. I just hope he doesn't try to square peg in a round hole JFields.

What Nagy and company need to do is let Dalton be Dalton to start but make sure you are practicing and setting up a JFields offense behind the scenes. I always marveled at how Baltimore did this with Lamar Jackson. He was COMPLETELY different from Flacco but the offense seemed to smoothly move into the Jackson offense. The big question is, can we trust Nagy to do this? My fingers and toes are crossed that he can.

[Otis Day]

Short answer at the moment = NO!! Nagy had to go to Lazor to start calling plays when 10 got the job back last year. That worked to an extent. I really don't have a lot of faith in Nagy and his staff.

[IE]

I think we have to give Nagy a do-over now.

Personally I haven't liked a lot of things he's done and decisions he's made. And especially his pure stubbornness and the way he defends things that I've considered indefensible: draining the clock and kicking against SD, abandoning the run and going pass-wacky many times, reportedly calling plays the team knows probably won't work, or heck - just a lot of his player usage has sucked. I believe he has cost the team games, personally... not a good trait in a coach.

I believe Nagy has brought in talented NFL offensive guys around them but struggled to listen to them a lot of the time. But I DO also believe that Mitch was WAY worse than most gave him credit for being. Perhaps Nagy went a little insane trying to figure out how to work with that. And maybe there was part of him that didn't want to dumb down the offense he wanted to implement just for MItch... and then be stuck longer with Mitch.

Perhaps Nagy has learned a little bit about flexibility. And with two better QBs that he can trust and some lessens learned, I'm going to support Nagy through at least mid-season. That will be enough time to see if Bad Nagy was just situtational, now that the situation has changed.

[The Marshall Plan]

The obvious answer is no.

No more excuses for Nagy now. Even Nagy and Mitch dick riders like wab won’t be able to brush this off if it fails.

I’m optimistic about it because Fields is probably the first modern QB the Bears have had. Great passer, mobile and can hit the deep ball. We’ve never had that. Even with my homie Smokin’ Jay.

At this time I would like to ask that anybody who believes their jersey buying is cursed to please not buy any Fields jerseys until like 2030.

[mmmc_35]

Nope. The worry is we are right

[Grizzled]

Nagy hasn't earned any trust for developing an effective offense. He totally mismanaged any talents Mitch might have had. But the Bears drafted a very talented QB who crossed all the T's and dotted all the I's in college. I'm going to say the Bears will make a plan to develop Fields and stick to it.

[Arkansasbear]

The thing I'm more worried about is will Pace do what he needs to do so that Fields can be successful.

We gave up 2 first round picks for Cutler and then did nothing on that side of the ball to help him succeed.

The OL for the most part is still not good. We still need help at the WR spot. Fields IMO can be the best of the lot this year, but he shouldn't start this year.

If they can get one (or better yet 2) OT and a WR in the next 2 rounds (need to trade back in the fourth a few spots and get a 4th or a 4th and a 5th or a 4th and a '22 4th) and play Dalton the whole year (let him be Alex Smith not Mike Glennon) I will feel very very good going into '22 and think we can still be competitive in '21.

[Moriarty]

Of course not.

2021 will be very interesting in terms of whether Nagy gets to stay and develop Fields or not.

[wulfy]

The actual answer is ... we don't have a choice.

So sit down, strap it in and get ready for some crazy #$%@!!

[wab]

I don’t think they had a plan in place to develop Mitch. At least not a good one.

I kinda believe Pace when he says they have a plan to develop Fields. He’s seen what happens.

[thunderspirit]

I don’t think they had a plan in place to develop Mitch. At least not a good one.

I kinda believe Pace when he says they have a plan to develop Fields. He’s seen what happens.

There clearly wasn't one for Trubisky under Fox.

Nagy seemed to have a plan in 2018, but then Trubisky didn't develop going into 2019, and that was basically that. I think Nagy gave up on him, rightly or wrongly.

[IE]

I think they had a plan to develop Mitch. That was the whole "throw him out there and keep it simple" approach in '17 and '18, followed by the "Nagy 2.0" bluster in '19 (accompanied with all sorts of apologetics that "it takes x years in the system" to develop). I think they clearly had a plan to develop him but they failed because he failed.

I don't think we can "trust" Nagy. But my point and believe is we have to give him enough time to prove he can work with someone worth working with. I don't think it is trusting him to give him more rope. If he was trustworthy he wouldn't need rope. But I do think instead of trust it is "maintain patience" while he does what he can with the rope he's given.

[wulfy]

For Heaven's Sake - Dowell Loggins was our offensive brainpower in 2017!

This staff's pedigree is light years ahead of that Fox offensive staff.

[Boris13c]

Nagy has to realize how his handling of Trubisky put a very dark stain oh his coaching resume ... he couldn't wait to bench Trubisky and doing so after a 3-0 start to the season was just obnoxious ... granted, he wasn't around when Trubisky was selected, but still, he had a great first year with Trubisky ... and then for reasons we will probably never know, the wheels fell off, both with Mitch's performance and with Nagy's brain dead very predictable play selection

this is his chance at redemption ... to show he can be a successful NFL coach and teacher ... if he screws this up, he'd better hope the Arena League comes back because no sane NFL team will want him ... so for self preservation alone, I think he will be properly motivated

as for trusting him to do so, no ... he has done nothing to deserve any trust ... and that is what he needs to correct

[IE]

Nagy has to realize how his handling of Trubisky put a very dark stain oh his coaching resume ... he couldn't wait to bench Trubisky and doing so after a 3-0 start to the season was just obnoxious ... granted, he wasn't around when Trubisky was selected, but still, he had a great first year with Trubisky ... and then for reasons we will probably never know, the wheels fell off, both with Mitch's performance and with Nagy's brain dead very predictable play selection

this is his chance at redemption ... to show he can be a successful NFL coach and teacher ... if he screws this up, he'd better hope the Arena League comes back because no sane NFL team will want him ... so for self preservation alone, I think he will be properly motivated

as for trusting him to do so, no ... he has done nothing to deserve any trust ... and that is what he needs to correct

What? Mitch threw 7 TD and 7 INTs for a 77 rating and under 190 yards a game his first season. He went 4-8 and in three of those games he threw the ball 16 or less times. In a WIN over Carolina he threw SEVEN passes. That's great? It's like Moses Moreno had 12 starts with a top D.

EDIT: I re-read and see you meant '18. Well... that wasn't great EITHER. They had the TOP defense in the league, that scored and absurd amount of TDS and even more than that teed up easy work for 10. Even then, he only performed statistically and personally well in ONE game (thankfully against the Pack). Mitch was not "great" in '18. He wasn't even good.

With THAT (#1 in '18 and top ten the entire time) defense, Nagy was able to frequently hide Trubisky for 3 years. We know he was never able to call his entire offense with Mitch because Mitch either didn't get it or couldn't do it. I'm not a Nagy fan - but it was clear Mitch's performance frustrated the hell out of him (not matter how rah-rah he was later). He clearly burned the clock against the Chargers because he just didn't trust Mitch to even run plays when he thought he could kick & win. He yanked Mitch for throwing the ball into the dirt and playing horribly in a winnable game against the Rams... only to put him back in the next game... because he simply had to. He had seen enough - clearly.

I think Nagy realized Mitch wasn't going to work since '18 when he tried to coach him up on the "entire" offense (e.g. "Nagy 2.0") and it just cratered. But what was he going to do? He kept plugging away. But then last year once he got a guy in Foles that could understand the offense better (even without practice!), he pulled the plug on Trubisky in a heartbeat. Why? He didn't want to be stuck with him getting extended. It's SO obvious. It was a good decision until the Oline got decimated and Foles lost his composure. Before then, they beat the Superbowl champs and SHOULD have beat the Saints.

I don't know what Nagy could have done differently with Mitch. And I'm not even a Nagy fan. I'm OPEN to Nagy showing us all what we could have been seeing the past few years with a real QB. I'm optimistic about it with Dalton and Fields, actually. The Bears are stacked at QB, and the Oline is going to be above-average.

[dplank]

The Trubisky Truthers are never gonna stop lol.

Guys, sometimes a QB just sux ok? That appears to be the case here. I guess it's hard to admit that if you hitched your wagon to the guy, but really it's time to move on. At best Mitch's skills simply didn't mesh with our offense, that happens too. I won't be waxing nostalgic over Mitch, I don't give a rats ass about him anymore, we have Fields and he's our guy. Let's go!

I do think Fields is stepping in to a better situation than Mitch stepped in to. Nagy has grown, and Lazor+Flip are strong QB coaches. Our offensive system has been in place for a few years now so not everyone will be learning it at the same time.

And I sure hope he's a better player as well.

[The Grizzly One]

Trubisky sucked BIG time. Nagy just got so big headed, arrogant, stubborn and stupid. No way I trust him.

I still trust Pace a little. He kept Nagy and I believe that was wrong. But I still can, and only, hope.

Nagy is going to have to prove it to me first. I unfortunately don't think he will. My best hope is he doesn't ruin Fields.

Reason for Optimism? I'm an idiot so Go Bears!

[Rusty Trombagent]

Nagy has to realize how his handling of Trubisky put a very dark stain oh his coaching resume ... he couldn't wait to bench Trubisky and doing so after a 3-0 start to the season was just obnoxious ... granted, he wasn't around when Trubisky was selected, but still, he had a great first year with Trubisky ... and then for reasons we will probably never know, the wheels fell off, both with Mitch's performance and with Nagy's brain dead very predictable play selection

this is his chance at redemption ... to show he can be a successful NFL coach and teacher ... if he screws this up, he'd better hope the Arena League comes back because no sane NFL team will want him ... so for self preservation alone, I think he will be properly motivated

as for trusting him to do so, no ... he has done nothing to deserve any trust ... and that is what he needs to correct

What? Mitch threw 7 TD and 7 INTs for a 77 rating and under 190 yards a game his first season. He went 4-8 and in three of those games he threw the ball 16 or less times. In a WIN over Carolina he threw SEVEN passes. That's great? It's like Moses Moreno had 12 starts with a top D.

EDIT: I re-read and see you meant '18. Well... that wasn't great EITHER. They had the TOP defense in the league, that scored and absurd amount of TDS and even more than that teed up easy work for 10. Even then, he only performed statistically and personally well in ONE game (thankfully against the Pack). Mitch was not "great" in '18. He wasn't even good.

With THAT (#1 in '18 and top ten the entire time) defense, Nagy was able to frequently hide Trubisky for 3 years. We know he was never able to call his entire offense with Mitch because Mitch either didn't get it or couldn't do it. I'm not a Nagy fan - but it was clear Mitch's performance frustrated the hell out of him (not matter how rah-rah he was later). He clearly burned the clock against the Chargers because he just didn't trust Mitch to even run plays when he thought he could kick & win. He yanked Mitch for throwing the ball into the dirt and playing horribly in a winnable game against the Rams... only to put him back in the next game... because he simply had to. He had seen enough - clearly.

I think Nagy realized Mitch wasn't going to work since '18 when he tried to coach him up on the "entire" offense (e.g. "Nagy 2.0") and it just cratered. But what was he going to do? He kept plugging away. But then last year once he got a guy in Foles that could understand the offense better (even without practice!), he pulled the plug on Trubisky in a heartbeat. Why? He didn't want to be stuck with him getting extended. It's SO obvious. It was a good decision until the Oline got decimated and Foles lost his composure. Before then, they beat the Superbowl champs and SHOULD have beat the Saints.

I don't know what Nagy could have done differently with Mitch. And I'm not even a Nagy fan. I'm OPEN to Nagy showing us all what we could have been seeing the past few years with a real QB. I'm optimistic about it with Dalton and Fields, actually. The Bears are stacked at QB, and the Oline is going to be above-average.

Yeah, it's been three years of our offense ebbing and flowing. things are scaled back, offense improves, offense is opened up, mitch regresses, rinse and repeat. last year bill lazor had the benefit of taking over the offense on it's last ebb (going back to rollouts and half field reads) and as we all know, better defenses eventually shut that shit down because you just cannot hope to sustain that model for any length of time in the nfl. So the offense started to open up again, and people instantly jumped on the "NAGY'S MEDDLING IN THE OFFENSE NOW" which was always fucking ridiculous to me.

I think I like Nagy more than a lot of people here, warts and all, and I am glad that his final legacy here wont be failing to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

[Rusty Trombagent]

I do think Fields is stepping in to a better situation than Mitch stepped in to. Nagy has grown, and Lazor+Flip are strong QB coaches. Our offensive system has been in place for a few years now so not everyone will be learning it at the same time.

I think this is very fair. There is probably some perfect alternate reality where Mitch succeeds here but again if ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING has to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for that to happen, then that excuse doesnt really carry any weight with me.

[wab]

Buzzkills

[Boris13c]

EDIT: I re-read and see you meant '18. Well... that wasn't great EITHER. They had the TOP defense in the league, that scored and absurd amount of TDS and even more than that teed up easy work for 10. Even then, he only performed statistically and personally well in ONE game (thankfully against the Pack). Mitch was not "great" in '18. He wasn't even good.

The Trubisky Truthers are never gonna stop lol.

Guys, sometimes a QB just sux ok? That appears to be the case here. I guess it's hard to admit that if you hitched your wagon to the guy, but really it's time to move on. At best Mitch's skills simply didn't mesh with our offense, that happens too. I won't be waxing nostalgic over Mitch, I don't give a rats ass about him anymore, we have Fields and he's our guy. Let's go!

nowhere did I say Mitch was great, and I do not know what a "Trubisky truther" is

the point I was trying to make was the offense was doing ok enough to be successful as a whole in 2018 and then things went completely off kilter and I don't know why ... and Nagy as the head coach had the responsibility to figure out how to equal or improve upon 2018 going forward, but that didn't happen

I expected improvement from the Mitch of 2018 and he regressed instead ... I expected improvement from the Bears overall after 2018 and they regressed primarily due to the offense, which in my opinion was Nagy's responsibility to correct even if it meant running the single wing to get production ... since Nagy did not appear to adjust, other than an increase in gadget plays, I do not trust he will adjust now if things don't go perfectly the first time he draws things up

[dplank]

EDIT: I re-read and see you meant '18. Well... that wasn't great EITHER. They had the TOP defense in the league, that scored and absurd amount of TDS and even more than that teed up easy work for 10. Even then, he only performed statistically and personally well in ONE game (thankfully against the Pack). Mitch was not "great" in '18. He wasn't even good.

The Trubisky Truthers are never gonna stop lol.

Guys, sometimes a QB just sux ok? That appears to be the case here. I guess it's hard to admit that if you hitched your wagon to the guy, but really it's time to move on. At best Mitch's skills simply didn't mesh with our offense, that happens too. I won't be waxing nostalgic over Mitch, I don't give a rats ass about him anymore, we have Fields and he's our guy. Let's go!

nowhere did I say Mitch was great, and I do not know what a "Trubisky truther" is

the point I was trying to make was the offense was doing ok enough to be successful as a whole in 2018 and then things went completely off kilter and I don't know why ... and Nagy as the head coach had the responsibility to figure out how to equal or improve upon 2018 going forward, but that didn't happen

I expected improvement from the Mitch of 2018 and he regressed instead ... I expected improvement from the Bears overall after 2018 and they regressed primarily due to the offense, which in my opinion was Nagy's responsibility to correct even if it meant running the single wing to get production ... since Nagy did not appear to adjust, other than an increase in gadget plays, I do not trust he will adjust now if things don't go perfectly the first time he draws things up

There's a pretty easy answer to this, but Trubisky Truthers don't accept it (that's what a Trubisky Truther is, someone who will just keep rolling out reason after reason why nothing was Mitch's fault). I'm not saying you're one, just saying that type of talk sounds like that.

Anyhow, here's the answer. He wasn't very good in 2018 either (neither was the offense in general), his stats were artificially boosted by a historically great defense that set him up in scoring position over and over and over again. AND, Nagy's zany red zone play calling was brand new and actually WORKED, like every time worked, and so Mitch ended up with pretty solid numbers. W/L and TD's in particular were artificially boosted. But if you peeked under the hood, the problems were evident. He completely imploded in multiple games against good defenses, a theme that would dog him the rest of his career here. It was overlooked because we often won those games anyways, that's how great our D was.

But hey, I get it. I also 'believed' and predicted that Mitch was gonna break out in 2019. I believed the Nagy 2.0 hype and all that shit. I was absolutely wrong, that was evident to me by midway through 2019. Some others just take longer to reassess their positions I suppose.

What I think you're missing is how much we regressed DEFENSIVELY. Because again, people look at the stat sheet and think "hey, we still ranked high". But it was TOTALLY DIFFERENT the moment Pagano took over. Turnovers plummeted, sacks plummeted, and our offense was no longer being setup to score like it had been. TOP went down because our D struggled to get off the field, even if they ended up holding for FG's. All that shit exposed the offense as a fraud, it wasn't that the offense "regressed" at all. It simply wasn't being handed opportunities on a silver platter, and they were exposed as what they were.

Ultimately, Nagy may still be the problem here. And it's possible Mitch will have a resurgence when matched to a scheme that he fits better in. If this offense isn't significantly better in 2021, then I'll be pretty sure Nagy is the problem. But I gotta give Nagy a shot with a new QB and decent OL first before I move on from him. I'm excited to see what happens.

[Teddy KGB]

Mitch was a dumb quarterback.

You couldn't find the open receivers and there were always open receivers. A bad quarterback can make a coach look bad.

I agree with no more excuses now that Nagy got to pick his quarterback. But I also think that it's going to look a lot better and a lot of fans are going to be surprised.

[The Marshall Plan]

Mitch was not drafted to be a better version of Jim Miller or Erik Kramer.

Mitch was drafted #2 overall with the expectation that he would be a franchise QB that would take over games and that we would win BECAUSE of him. Not because Mitch did good enough, but because MITCH took over the game and dominated. That's what franchise QBs do.

2018 was a function of a couple factors:

1) Dominant defense designed by Vic Fangio with Khalil Mack pouring kerosene all over the thing.
2) Nagy's offense was brand new to the Bears. There was a lightning in a bottle effect with the newness and element of surprise.

I do firmly believe they were a double doink away from a Super Bowl. And MAYBE they win the whole thing. You don't know. That's why they play the games.

Then 2019 happened and this was the year Mitch needed to take The Leap. It clearly didn't happen.

2020 speaks for itself.

The defensive regression we had after Fangio left should have been offset (maybe even moreso) had Mitch been a franchise QB.

Mitch needed to go. You cannot rely on a generational defense to bail your ass out and to carry the team. You need a franchise QB that can make you compete in every game.

And until you find that franchise QB you have to constantly look for one. That's why I'm mad about Pace not drafting Lamar Jackson, but that's a whole other discussion.

Bottom line, I'm ecstatic that Fields is here. Just as a QB prospect, he's night and day from Mitch. There is no comparing their resumes.

[IotaNet]

One thing I will say is this. Nagy, and Pace started off as rookies. No experience in the big chair. What this draft is showing me is that Pace has grown and learned. Nagy is many things but DUMB is not one of them. I also think he has a fair amount of introspection. You don’t think he’s been spending time in the off-season trying to learn and get better?

Both of these guys have kept their jobs by the hair of their chinny-chin-chins … and they know it. I believe they have grown and have learned from their mistakes and inexperience.

Bottom line - yeah, I trust them.

[The Grizzly One]

The actual answer is ... we don't have a choice.

So sit down, strap it in and get ready for some crazy #$%@!!

Yea this!

[docc]

I liked Mitch..but he is yesterday's dinner..and you know what that's looks like the next day..

Flush..and move on..all over..
Go Fields !

[Dardango]

Like Nagy as a motivator, but he's an abysmal playcaller and schemer. It took Lazor taking over to actually call running plays and proved that all "we have to figure out how to get Monty going" was crap. No faith in Nagy to make this offense do what it can.

[thunderspirit]

Criticism of Nagy's playcalling is completely understandable. I don't get criticism of the scheming, though. There are a lot of videos available showing open receivers that don't get the ball, especially with Trubisky taking snaps.

[TheWorldBreaker]

Like Nagy as a motivator, but he's an abysmal playcaller and schemer. It took Lazor taking over to actually call running plays and proved that all "we have to figure out how to get Monty going" was crap. No faith in Nagy to make this offense do what it can.

He struggles as a play caller because he lacks the patience to stick to what’s working. But his pass plays are undeniably well designed.

Sean Payton literally stole the play that Wims dropped the touchdown on. And there were numerous instances of receivers being schemed open and Trubisky not throwing it or missing the throw.

Hopefully, he can learn that if they can’t stop you from running right up the middle you can force them to stop you before throwing out the jet sweep or whatever.

But again he’s got a good offensive mind, the team plays for him, and the Bears have made the playoffs two of his 3 years. So it could and has been a lot worse.