A new leaf turned for Nagy?
Bears coach asked his players what they wanted to see in game plan
When Matt Nagy said the Bears had open and frank discussions last week, he meant it.
When Nagy said after the
Bears’ 24-14 victory over the Lions on Sunday at Soldier Field that many were involved in the planning that led to Bill Lazor calling plays, the head coach meant it.
The Bears held a meeting with offensive players on Sept. 28, two days after their 26-6 meltdown against the Browns in Cleveland, and Nagy pointedly asked players what they wanted to run, according to a source.
“It was the whole offense and Coach Nagy in one room, and we were all congregating on what suggestions some players might have on to what we need to do on offense to improve and get better,” said quarterback Justin Fields, who on Wednesday was named the starter moving forward. “Some people chimed in on their thoughts. And Coach took that to heart.
“I think he put (that) in the game plan last week. So that’s just props to Coach to listening to us and just putting in what the players want and what the players thought to get us more confident about the game plan. Kind of us all (being) on the same page about everything.”
Maybe it will serve as a galvanizing moment early in the season as the Bears find themselves at 2-2 and in transition with Fields’ promotion. The team is preparing for a challenging portion of the schedule with a trip to Las Vegas to face the Raiders on Sunday, a home game against the Green Bay Packers, a trip to Tampa, Fla., to face the Buccaneers and a home game against the San Francisco 49ers.
The next four weeks will determine if the Bears can be a challenger in the second half or if 2021 will be largely about the development of the quarterback of the future-turned-QB of right now. If the Bears want to accomplish both, they need to use improvements against the Lions as a building block entering this tough stretch.
It’s normal for offensive coaches to confer with quarterbacks regularly about what plays they like as a game plan is formulated, installed and tweaked over the course of a practice week. Involving the entire offense in the process — asking players what they want — isn’t standard protocol.
“You learn having raw, honest conversations,” Nagy said last week. “It’s healthy. It’s good. It enables you to realize why things happen. And it’s also really good from a coaching perspective to have the talks and communication, open communication with the players. So you take what they give you and you use it.”
Surely it speaks to the depths to which the Bears discovered themselves in the aftermath of the loss to the Browns, against whom the offense managed only 47 yards offense on 42 plays in a historically bad performance that highlighted a terrible game plan and equally flawed execution.
Perhaps it’s a sign Nagy wanted to send a message that they’re all in it together. Perhaps it’s a sign of a desperate coach who was in search of answers.
Most likely a combination of factors led to the decision to create an open forum in the search for answers.
The offense was better against the Lions. The Bears had only eight explosive plays — pass plays of 20 or more yards and runs of 10 or more yards — through three games. They had 10 against the Lions in Week 4 — five passes and five runs — involving five players.
The Bears set the tone by choosing to receive the ball after winning the coin toss and leaning on the Lions with the running game as David Montgomery got off to a fast start en route to 106 yards on 23 carries. The game plan shifted from being heavily based out of the shotgun to having Fields under center more than half the time. The offense gained 188 yards on the ground on 39 attempts, creating opportunities for Fields in the play-action game. He completed 11 of 17 passes for 209 yards and made some aggressive throws downfield into tight windows.
The four-minute offense was productive at the end of the game as the Bears ran out the clock by converting three first downs.
Ample room for improvement remains.
The Lions (0-4) aren’t good and lost their best pass rusher, Romeo Okwara, to a torn Achilles tendon early in the game.
The Bears were 1-for-8 on third down, which will get them into trouble against the opponents they’re about to face.
“Coach Nagy came to us and challenged us,” right tackle Germain Ifedi said. “He said,
‘All right, we’re going to run the offense. Our identity is going to start up front.’ We know if up front we’re not doing it, the offense isn’t going to (work) whether we’re running it or throwing. We just wanted the opportunity to show who we are. I think Sunday was a step in the right direction of, all right, this is who we are.”
What it means moving forward remains to be seen. Lazor remains the play caller, and Nagy remains in charge of the operation with the staff as a whole collaborating on the game plan. Maybe open dialogue with players about what should be featured on a weekly or occasional basis will continue.
It would be unusual, but
Nagy wasn’t kidding when he described unfiltered communication with his players.