Bears, Matt Nagy's lack of identity is No. 1 concern for Bears

[Brownie]

Why Robert Mays thinks identity is No. 1 concern for Bears

Mays thinks the Bears need some musicality to help their offense.

www.nbcsports.com

“Whether they have a cohesive and complete and distilled plan and identity,” Mays said. “I think that’s been the biggest concern to me over the past three or so years. The offense feels like a hodgepodge of things. It doesn’t seem like a lot of the elements of it are connected together. There doesn’t seem to be a, ‘This is what we do well,’ a sense of how to get the most out of our players. So that to me is still the No. 1 thing and that’s independent of Justin Fields, but I think that concern connects to him.

“If you’re going to talk yourself into this coaching staff, the way that you can talk yourself into it is they never had their right guy. Without their right guy, that’s affected their ability to form a cohesive plan. Now that they have that right guy, can that cohesive plan exist? I still have serious questions about that. Other offensive coaches I’ve talked to about the Bears will say that.”

Nagy has said over this offseason that he’s aware of the offensive shortcomings, and the general lack of an identity, and he’s working hard to rectify it in his fourth season as a head coach.

“I think for us it's something where, we gotta decide, OK, our identity,” Nagy said earlier this month. “You talk about that every year. We know what we want to be… What we're doing, the coaching staff, the offensive side of the ball, i think they're doing a really good job tailoring this to all these guys' strengths. Now we'll have to kinda see and make sure that we're letting our guys play fast. That's probably the ultimate goal.

“I think every year is a little bit different but you want to create an identity as fast as you can.”


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[Enasic]

Classic Nagy word salad at the end.

 

[Brownie]

Classic Nagy word salad at the end.

 

[WindyCity]

It is.

Mays was on the NBC Chicago Podcast and said that the wide zone play action stuff they ran with Mitch felt like a cover band playing songs.

I thought it was a good analogy.

I am hoping we have the personnel to run more of the stuff they want to.

 

[The Big Grabowski]

Honestly, I wish we'd have more objective conversations about Nagy like this.

1). The organization clearly likes his leadership. He has an uncanny ability to keep the team together.
2). Critics question his game management, ability to adjust on the fly, and the rhythm of his play calling.
3). He hasn't had key pieces to run his scheme from QB to OL, but he's also handcuffed players instead of playing to their strengths.

At this point, it's clear that he's not going to be some generational talent at HC, maximizing his situation year in and out.

Nagy needs to prove that he's learning and can adjust when the situation isn't ideal. Bottom line, he needs to develop Fields, establish a winning culture, and move the team forward in the playoffs. We need to see progress.

 

[meangreek]

This is starting to sound similar to Jay Cutler excuses

 

[iueyedoc]

It is.

Mays was on the NBC Chicago Podcast and said that the wide zone play action stuff they ran with Mitch felt like a cover band playing songs.

I thought it was a good analogy.

I am hoping we have the personnel to run more of the stuff they want to.

Matt "Cover Band" Nagy

2 words that about sum him up
Nothing new and performed significantly worse than the original.

 

[remydat]

This is a lot of overthinking IMO. Nagy wants to run the KC offense. He ran it with some success in 2018 when Trubisky was not a total head case and when Gabs, Cohen, and Burton provided some speed at their positions. It failed miserably in 2019 when Trubisky sucked and when Gabs, Cohen and Burton failed to build on 2018. It continued to fail in 2020 until Lazor was able to design a Fischer Price offense for Trubisky like Fox and Loggains did before Nagy.

Nagy is a young coach who has practically zero experience outside of the KC offense. Expecting he would be able to adjust his scheme or change it to suit the players he has was always a recipe for failure because you hired a guy that does not have the experience in multiple offensive systems. He really only has experience in a single offensive system and he was hired by Pace because Trubisky's strengths in college matched that system. The problem is Trubisky's strengths in college became weaknesses in the NFL.

Having said that, Nagy is out of excuses. He has an OL that is better suited to run the KC offense now. He has speed at WR with Mooney, Bryd and Goodwin. He has competent TEs and most importantly he has a young QB he handpicked to run the KC offense. If he can't succeed in this environment he likely never will so it is put up or shut up time.

 

[remydat]

Nagy needs to prove that he's learning and can adjust when the situation isn't ideal. Bottom line, he needs to develop Fields, establish a winning culture, and move the team forward in the playoffs. We need to see progress.

He sort of already did when he brought in Lazor. Again, he has zero experience outside of the KC offense. The only thing he could do is bring in a guy that does which is why he brought Lazor in.

I am less concerned if he can adjust when the situation isn't ideal and more concerned with can he run his offense when he actually has the pieces in place. There are few coaches who are experts in multiple systems. If you ask McVay to run something other than his system, he is going to struggle. What most of these young guys do is run a single system and try and draft and sign guys that are suited to it. That is a natural consequence of hiring these young whiz kids that don't have the depth of experience that more seasoned coaches have. They are specialists not jacks of all trades like the older guys.

 

[mattb78]

Anybody with a brain can see the offensive problems were deeper than Trubisky.

The offensive will improve with Fields, but we will never get the most that we can out of him with Nagy at the helm. Nagy is going to hold the Bears back as long as we keep him.

 

[modo]

Identity is a code word for a successful way of winning.

What Nagy is really saying is what have not found a consistent way of winning. Nagy shoulders quite a bit of blame for that.

 

[Mdbearz]

I think Nagy actually thinks that he can out think other NFL teams, and that does not always put his team in the best situation.

Hope he has learned that situation, personnel and opposing teams strength and weakness are more important.

I think Nagy is capable of developing plays that will get receivers open, but that alone is not enough.

I like the way the Ravens and the Titans play football, they dominate in the running game and that sets up the play action pass for big plays. That kind of identity is also good for a rookie QB, particularly one that is capable of connecting on the deep passes (something Trubisky could not do, and Fox was right).

I don't want us to go to the extreme that Fox played the run game, but Nagy is scared shtless when it come to trusting the run game. If he can put the right people on the field for the situation and lean on the run game, then that will be a huge improvement.

 

[Visionman]

When you have a bad QB, it forces you to try and find other creative ways to score points. I’m not letting Nagy off the hook here, he still has LOTS to prove. But the QB issue has been by far the biggest issue.

 

[Zion]

Nagy has an identity, but problem is that he's not very good at what he wants to be

 

[Enasic]

Honestly, I wish we'd have more objective conversations about Nagy like this.

1). The organization clearly likes his leadership. He has an uncanny ability to keep the team together.
2). Critics question his game management, ability to adjust on the fly, and the rhythm of his play calling.
3). He hasn't had key pieces to run his scheme from QB to OL, but he's also handcuffed players instead of playing to their strengths.

At this point, it's clear that he's not going to be some generational talent at HC, maximizing his situation year in and out.

Nagy needs to prove that he's learning and can adjust when the situation isn't ideal. Bottom line, he needs to develop Fields, establish a winning culture, and move the team forward in the playoffs. We need to see progress.

If he had an uncanny ability to keep the team together and lead then why did they flat out quit in GB and have players loaf throughout the season? I hear this narrative a lot about nagys leadership and don’t think it holds water anymore.

 

[Visionman]

I think Nagy actually thinks that he can out think other NFL teams, and that does not always put his team in the best situation.

Hope he has learned that situation, personnel and opposing teams strength and weakness are more important.

I think Nagy is capable of developing plays that will get receivers open, but that alone is not enough.

I like the way the Ravens and the Titans play football, they dominate in the running game and that sets up the play action pass for big plays. That kind of identity is also good for a rookie QB, particularly one that is capable of connecting on the deep passes (something Trubisky could not do, and Fox was right).

I don't want us to go to the extreme that Fox played the run game, but Nagy is scared shtless when it come to trusting the run game. If he can put the right people on the field for the situation and lean on the run game, then that will be a huge improvement.

When your QB can hit any deep passes to get the defense to back off, and when your starting OTs are Leno and Maddie, you’re going to struggle running the ball.

Actually, Nagy ran the ball a lot last season given the situation. Sometimes, he probably should have run the ball LESS…

 

[JoJoBoxer]

Classic Nagy word salad at the end.

He is beginning to sound like a used-car salesman or a politician.

 

[legendxofxlink]

Nagy is obsessed with finding mismatches pre-snap. It's fine to do on occasion, but at some point you need your guys to just flatout perform better than the guy across from them. Utilize the players strengths, regardless if there's a mismatch.

Nagy started to do that towards the end of last season before Mitch completely shit the bed the last 2 games.

 

[JoJoBoxer]

It is.

Mays was on the NBC Chicago Podcast and said that the wide zone play action stuff they ran with Mitch felt like a cover band playing songs.

I thought it was a good analogy.

I am hoping we have the personnel to run more of the stuff they want to.

I liked that podcast.

At one point, they said that Nagy is just throwing plays at the wall to see what sticks. There is no planning at all to his play calling. No play call is setting anything up in the future. Just complete randomness.

He has to be held accountable this year. Improve the team tremendously, great. Be a bottom dweller offense, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

[modo]

It would be nice to have pro-bowl QB play...

I don't blame Nagy for not having a great QB.

However....

I blame Nagy for not playing to Trubisky's strengths like Lazor was able to.
I blame Nagy for calling tentative offensive plays at the wrong time
I blame Nagy for his players being unprepared at times
I blame Nagy for the worst player personnel calls on the field at the absolute worst times
I blame Nagy for going to well too many times on particular plays and not being a step ahead of the defense 90% of the time
I blame Nagy for being stubborn and not responsive enough in his playcalling in its entirety