Jackson: Nagy’s talk was ‘just motivation’
Defense had no issue with coach being hard on them after Packers loss, safety says
When coach Matt Nagy made his regular Wednesday stop at the Chicago Bears defensive meeting, he made sure the players properly received his message.
On a Zoom call with media Monday, Nagy was hard on the Bears defense after it turned in its worst performance of the season in a 41-25 loss to the Green Bay Packers. Nagy noted how the Bears playing from behind after an early Packers touchdown drive made it more difficult on the offense and said, “That’s not who our defense is.”
Safety Tashaun Gipson said Nagy put those words in the right context for players to digest as they prepare for their next test Sunday against the Detroit Lions at Soldier Field.
“(He was) letting us know that wasn’t a finger-pointing session,” Gipson said. “It was just him talking about the game, frustrations, things like that. But make no mistake about it, he still is believing everything we can do as a defense, and it was nothing personal.
“We’ve got a mature group on defense, and nobody I talked to was personally offended and brought up the comments. … Him being the guy that he is, he got in front of it just in case there was anybody who had any ill will toward the comments.”
Nagy, who previously said he had “zero concern” about how his players took his comments, called the exchange “really healthy” Thursday. Gipson said Nagy
checking in on their mindset at the meeting was appreciated, though not necessary. And neither Gipson nor safety Eddie Jackson thought any of their teammates took offense to his challenge.
Besides, the defensive players already knew Nagy was right.
Even if an overarching theme of the 2020 Bears season is the defense having to carry too much weight for a failing offense, the defense’s performance Sunday was not up to its own standards.
The defense gave up season highs in points (34), touchdown passes (four), rushing yards (182), first downs (28), and thirddown percentage (6 of 11, 54.55%). It was also its second-worst game for redzone percentage (4 of 5 for 80%). The Bears didn’t record a sack for the first time this season and didn’t have a takeaway for the fourth time.
Jackson called it “embarrassing.” Gipson called it getting “big-brothered,” likening the Packers’ dominant performance to what his older brother used to do to him when he was little. He said the Packers had answers for every Bears call.
“We’re all grown men in here, and the biggest thing for us as players and professional athletes, we’ve got to hold ourselves accountable no matter what’s going on on the offensive side of the ball,” Gipson said. “We pride ourselves on being able to do a certain job and
hold ourselves to a certain standard and we just didn’t do that. Give Aaron Rodgers a lot of credit. But no quarterback, no offense in t h e Nat i o n a l Fo o t b a l l League should be able to have their way and impose their will like they did on us in front of a national audience.”
Few would have expected the Bears to shut down Rodgers, who is having an elite season among his many great ones. But NextGen Stats painted a bigger picture of his and the Packers’ successes Sunday.
Rodgers threw into a tight window on one occasion — with the secondlowest tight-window pass percentage of the week at just 3.4%. His season average is 12.3%, while the Bears entered the game forcing tight-window throws on 20% of passes.
Rodgers also was pressured on just 3 of 29 dropbacks, and his 2.89-second average time to throw was sixth-most in Week 12.
Going into the game, defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano l amented how tough Rodgers is to slow down — and he did it again Thursday.
“We ran into a buzzsaw, so to speak,” Pagano said. “Best quarterback in the league, I think. I didn’t do a good enough job of mixing things up, and (Rodgers) knows exactly what you’re in. I didn’t do a good enough job of making sure that we t ried t o disguise well enough. … You’ve got to credit Aaron Rodgers and Matt LaFleur and that offense. The way they executed, the way that they pl ayed, obvi ousl y had something to do with it.
Usually someone makes a play and you do something to stop the bleeding. Just couldn’t get it. We didn’t have enough bandages and whatever to get the bleeding stopped.”
Nagy, Pagano, Gipson and Ja c k s o n , h oweve r, a l l pushed back on the idea the defense quit after NBC announcer Tony Dungy asserted “this is the Bears defense basically giving up here” after Ja ma a l Williams’ 13-yard touchdown run to put the Packers up 41-10.
“Our guys never give up,” Pagano said. “I’ll fight anybody tooth and nail on that. And I love Tony. I have great respect for Tony. … But I don’t pay attention to any of that stuff. Our guys don’t ever quit. They would never give up.”
The hope this week is that all the talk about the Bears defense’s mistakes against the Packers will be fuel for the fire as they take on Matthew Stafford and a Detroit Lions offense led by interim coach Darrell Bevell.
The Bears might benefit from the return of defensive l i neman Akiem Hicks, whose absence was felt acutely when he sat out the Packers game with a hamstring injury. Hicks returned to practice in a limited capacity Thursday.
And perhaps they’ll benefit from Nagy’s criticism, which Jackson called “just motivation.”
“We hold ourselves up to a high standard,” Jackson said. “And so does Coach. He sees that. So when he says something like that, we take it as motivation. We’ve got to get back on track and fix what needs to be fixed.”