MIDAS TOUCH
The Bears had questions about coach Matt Nagy. 12 wins and a return to the playoffs answered them.
When the new hire walked into the Bears weight room for the first time last Jan. 9, Charles Leno wasn’t sure what to expect. Who the heck was Matt Nagy? The 39-year-old had never been a head coach at any level. He had been the Chiefs offensive coordinator for the previous two seasons but called plays for only six games.
Still, general manager Ryan Pace was smitten enough to make him coach and play caller for a Bears team hoping to accelerate its rebuilding effort.
In meeting the new boss, Leno’s presence in the weight room nine days into the offseason amounted to a shiny, red apple for the teacher. First impressions have two sides, though, and the veteran left tackle had his radar up.
“He wasn’t, ‘I’m the head coach!’ ” Leno recalled Tuesday, puffing out his chest for effect. “He was just, ‘Hey, what’s up? I’m Matt.’ He was really chill; just seemed like a cool, good dude.”
It was a fine start. But beyond a Wikipedia bio and superficial introduction, there were so many curiosities about Nagy. Critical questions shared by Leno’s teammates, assistant coaches, executives and every fan praying Nagy was the right choice to finally pull the team free from quicksand near the bottom of the NFL.
How would Nagy balance establishing the enjoyable work environment everyone craves with the discipline required to win?
How would his football expertise, including his experience as an Arena League quarterback, elevate a team that had lost at least 10 games in four straight last-place seasons?
How would one of the NFL’s youngest teams respond to his leadership style?
A year later, as the Bears play host to the Eagles on Sunday in their first playoff game since 2010, the answers are stacked behind a 12-4 record and NFC North championship.
Nagy, now 40, engineered this remarkable turnaround with his authenticity, charisma, aptitude and obsession with winning. He created a cohesive and fun dynamic that has exploited a talented roster. In building the team, just about everything he touches seemingly turns to gold.
Now he’s a front-runner for the NFL Coach of the Year award. And regardless of whether the Bears wake up from this dream season Sunday or after the Super Bowl in February, they appreciate how their rookie coach has satisfied their curiosities.
“I love learning from Coach and how he teaches,” quarterback Mitch Trubisky said. “He’s very hands on, visual, and he can work with any type of person and get his point across. It’s really easy to learn from him (because of ) the type of person he is and how smart he is.”
The light and the dark
Akiem Hicks doesn’t like change. But he despises losing. So the defensive lineman’s mind was open and heart earnest as he entered the Halas Hall auditorium April 3 for Nagy’s first team meeting.
Hicks’ seven-year career includes stints under Super Bowl champion coaches Sean Payton and Bill Belichick and runner-up John Fox. How would Nagy compare?
“There was a wisdom he had even though he had never been a head coach before,” Hicks said. “He just had it together, and you could see that. You respect that as a player because he wasn’t reaching to be somebody that he’s not.”
That assessment mirrors Nagy’s coaching mantra: “Be you.” It’s painted on a wall in a hallway at team headquarters. It’s printed in the bottom right corner of his play-call sheet for every game.
Nagy’s cultivation of individualism and authenticity isn’t entirely novel in the NFL coaching ranks. But it has deeply resonated with a roster on which only four of 53 players are 30 or older.
For Nagy, it’s a mandate to have fun while being a stickler for hard, detailed work.
It can be a difficult balance to strike. Veteran cornerback Prince Amukamara knows that from playing for coaches on both ends of the spectrum. He equates it to the differences between public and private school.
Nagy’s style?
“It’s a little bit of both,” Amukamara said. “There’s order. But within the order, you can still have your fun. And I feel like that’s what’s needed for this group. Even though we are young, there’s a lot of mature guys. It’s been great.”
Yes, the coach who condones choreographed touchdown celebrations also insists they end within seconds so the team isn’t penalized for delay of game on the extra point.
The coach who established locker-room dance parties after every victory is the same guy who promised players in July they were in for the most taxing training camp they had ever endured.
As it turned out, those 24 summer days were crucial to earning players’ respect while establishing parameters for fun and discipline.
During practice one August morning, Nagy called the entire team together to lambaste its collective sloppiness. Two days later, he made himself the quarterback for one-on-one drills between receivers and defensive backs.
Nagy’s first camp featured more live tackling and more consecutive days in full pads than any of the five camps run by his immediate predecessors, Fox and Marc Trestman.
“But he knew when to pull back,” Amukamara said. “He knew when to give us some off days. He’s not closed off into doing it his own way. He was open and willing to listen.”
Nagy maintained that dichotomy throughout the regular season with just the right touch.
He’s friendly with his players, a peer who, for example, talks basketball with receiver Allen Robinson or “Fortnite” with running back Tarik Cohen.
“I would hang out with him if he wasn’t my coach,” right tackle Bobby Massie said.
At the same time, he’s capable of profane tirades. He unleashed one in the locker room at halftime of the Dec. 2 loss to the Giants. He was set off by the defense’s failure to prevent the Giants from getting out of bounds to stop the clock and attempt a successful 57-yard field goal. The Bears ended up losing in overtime by three.
Nagy says breathing fire comes naturally when he senses players crossing a line and in need of being reeled back in.
“The coaches know that if I need to, I’ve got a dark side — in a good way,” he said. “If you don’t, you’ll get run over. You’ll get taken advantage of.”
For players, Nagy’s occasional darkness brightens the Bears’ light.
“Who doesn’t love a coach that’s fiery?” Hicks said. “It says that it means something to him. It’s the essence of football rather than the business of football.”
From projection to proof
Pace and his lieutenants extensively researched coaching candidates before interviewing six during an eight-day search. As they gathered intel and insight from about 30 people, several of Pace’s and Nagy’s mutual acquaintances asserted they would make a great match.
Both started at the bottom rung of the NFL front-office and coaching ladders. They have friendly personalities. They have similar ideas about leadership and the value of communication.
Nagy was not the hot name that, say, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was. But Pace became convinced Nagy was his man during a four-hour interview on a Sunday morning, followed by dinner with their wives that night.
“Everything felt right,” Nagy recalled in December. “It felt good. I trust my instinct.”
Pace, 41, took a similar leap of faith, knowing Nagy could prove himself in new coaching and play-calling roles only after he was in the job.
Over time, Nagy responded well to challenges. Like how he got the team untracked during that disjointed training camp practice. Or how he never allowed the team to wallow in self-pity when Robinson and star linebacker Khalil Mack missed midseason games against the Jets and Bills because of injuries.
More specific to Nagy’s role as a football strategist, Pace believed Nagy was detailed and innovative. The Chiefs’ offensive success suggested Nagy was an effective teacher.
How, though, would that manifest with the Bears?
Dave Ragone also had that question. He was the only one of Fox’s offensive position coaches whom Nagy retained. The quarterbacks coach was thrilled to continue mentoring Trubisky but could only guess the details of how that would work.
How hands-on would Nagy be with quarterbacks in practices and meetings? What room would that leave for Ragone to put his imprint on Trubisky? How might Ragone have to tailor his coaching style?
In December, he recalled those initial curiosities with a smile.
“What attracts me to Matt is the fact he has no ego and no agenda,” Ragone, 39, said. “He’s authentic. That’s probably the best compliment I can give anybody I’ve ever worked with. He’s truly passionate about what he does. He’s obsessed with winning, and it’s contagious.”
Since that first day in April, Nagy has spent more time with Ragone and the quarterbacks than any other group.
Sleeves rolled up. Hands-on. All-in.
Ragone loves how Nagy sees the game through a quarterback’s eyes. Say they’re reviewing video of a play. A coach who isn’t as in tune with the quarterback might simply ask: Why didn’t he throw it there?
“That’s the easy observation,” Ragone said. “He’ll make the observation of, ‘Hey, the three-technique (defensive tackle) put his hand up. The quarterback didn’t have clean vision. He moved. That’s why he didn’t.’ We don’t have to have a three-minute dialogue of all that or an excuse. That, to me, is completely refreshing.”
Trubisky’s improvements this season generally have been more subtle, more gradual. As Nagy promised, there has been no magic wand. The process is driven by their dedicated, repetitive work through Trubisky’s successes and stumbles.
Their relationship began in 2017 during Trubisky’s hours-long pre-draft visit with the Chiefs. Once the Bears hired Nagy, Trubisky wondered about Nagy’s teaching style and how well they would communicate.
The ease of their interactions boosted Trubisky’s confidence.
“I knew what kind of direction this offense and team could head in,” he said. “We are learning and making mistakes and growing, but because of his experience and how he’s teaching this offense, we’re further along than some offenses usually are in their first year.”
Trubisky has had an inconsistent but solid season. His 95.4 passer rating was 16th in the 32-team league. The Bears were 21st in total offense, an improvement from 30th last season but below where Nagy has vowed to lift them.
The ascent requires time, he says. At first, players had to take his word for it based on Nagy’s reputation and the Chiefs’ steady offensive output. But now they sense the potential through their own experiences.
“He’s a spark-plug coach,” Cohen said. “He’s always high intensity. The way he talks to a player is at eye level. You feel like he’s just one of the guys in the locker room. And he’s a brilliant mind. The stuff he looks at, it gives us an advantage. When we look at it through his point of view, you’re like, dang, it’s really true.”
The next step
“I always self-reflect. “I’m using any of those experiences to make myself a better coach for the players.” — Bears coach Matt Nagy
Nagy leads the Bears into Sunday’s game confident he’ll continue to prove himself under the brighter postseason spotlight.
Last January, on the night before Nagy interviewed with the Bears, his Chiefs led the Titans 21-3 at halftime of their wild-card game before losing 22-21. Nagy’s play calling was criticized by fans who thought he should have called more runs.
“I always self-reflect,” Nagy said. “I’m using any of those experiences to make myself a better coach for the players. It all circles back to me trusting myself as a coach and believing in what I feel is the right thing to do.”
Whatever that is, he’ll have the confidence of his players.
As the Bears celebrated their fourth-quarter touchdown Sunday against the Vikings, something clicked for Leno.
Nagy’s summertime vow to put players through their most grueling training camp? For Leno, a 306-pound offensive lineman, the toughest challenge was what Nagy calls the “long-drive drill.”
At the end of practice, with the fuel light blinking after two hours of knocking heads in the summer sun, Nagy would script a drive of 12, 14 or 16 plays.
Go the length of the field, he’d say. Do it while you’re tired. Fourth quarter. Game on the line. What do you have left?
So there was Leno on Sunday, too spent to celebrate more than tapping Cohen’s helmet after a 16-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that lasted 9 minutes, 5 seconds.
The Bears’ best, most emphatic drive of the season had choked the life out of their rival.
The dethroned division champs are now home for the winter.
“That’s the long-drive drill,” Leno said. “We needed that. It comes full circle, and it’s a beautiful thing.”
Now they get it. After 12 wins, they fully understand.