Thoughts on the Pace/Nagy Situation

[BNB]

The defense carried Nagy's team to enough wins to make him look competent for a short period of time. 3 1/2 years of inept offense finally did Nagy in.

Aside from the occasional good win, Nagy's team only beat bum teams. He was 100% a bumslayer. His offense was outdated, confusing to everyone but the defense it faced. His team was undisciplined, made repeated mistakes, lost their cool every game with seemingly zero accountability. He was a poor decision maker, he was bad at playcalling, bad at clock management. I honestly don't know what he did well. He just wasn't the worst. Which is why teams like the Giants, Lions, Vikings, Falcons, Jaguars, Texans, WFT, etc. still lost to us.

A win under Nagy was fool's gold.

same questions I had to the other guy:


But do you think we had good offensive talent?

If not, then is that really Nagy's fault?

If yes, then are you saying that Pace actually wasn't bad?

If we think the offensive talent sucked - then I think it would be fairer to say that Nagy was working with what he had. If we think the offensive talent was good, then it makes sense to say Nagy sucked... but then, in essence, we're saying Pace did a good job of assembling a roster that Nagy botched.

If we're saying both sucked, then wouldn't have we done much worse? I get "lucking" into wins here and there... but to hang around .500 for 4 straight years doesn't happen because you're lucky. It happens because you really simply are just average.

(NOTE: I don't disagree with what you said. Again, I wanted this guy gone as much as anyone.)

 

[Rise]

But do you think we had good offensive talent?

If not, then is that really Nagy's fault?

If yes, then are you saying that Pace actually wasn't bad?

I think Pace screwed up by limiting the amount of picks he had and never playing the buy year/sell year comp pick game. His margin for error was thus razor thin. The depth on this team sucks.

Nagy can’t create a game plan to save his life. Horrible play caller who had no rhythm or rational thought behind it. Defenses knew the plays as well, just horrible.

they both completed each other in negative ways which is why they both had to go. You have to judge them separately.

if you’re asking me to pick one I’d take pace all day over Nagy not even close.

 

[Beardown34]

But do you think we had good offensive talent?

If not, then is that really Nagy's fault?

If yes, then are you saying that Pace actually wasn't bad?

Nagy's offensive scheme was crap.
Pace was good at getting free agents, poor at drafting top round talents.

Both at fault, both needed to go.

 

[BNB]

I think Pace screwed up by limiting the amount of picks he had and never playing the buy year/sell year comp pick game. His margin for error was thus razor thin. The depth on this team sucks.

Nagy can’t create a game plan to save his life. Horrible play caller who had no rhythm or rational thought behind it. Defenses knew the plays as well, just horrible.

they both completed each other in negative ways which is why they both had to go. You have to judge them separately.

if you’re asking me to pick one I’d take pace all day over Nagy not even close.

I overall agree.

Obviously, between the two, I'd pick Nagy based on what was achieved with the talent we had. I guess it's a matter of perspective.

 

[mecha]

closest comparison I can make to Nagy is probably Trestman. Trestman at least had legitimacy in calling offenses, he just happened to be paired with the worst defenses in franchise history. which owes to the point that Fangio's defense propped up Nagy in 2018. Fangio then had delusions of grandeur that he was going to be a head coach and Nagy was then exposed. Pace came to a very broken team and did whatever he could to scotch tape and krazy glue it back together. there have been good offenses that had lesser players (cause the money was spent elsewhere) that got it done, so I don't think it's a problem with the Bears now that they have terrible players. the offensive line in even its halfass state is still better than Lovie Smith's latter post-Super Bowl years. Pace's problem is he had more big misses than little hits, and was prone to selling the farm for his reach picks which affected the rest of the drafts. I'm in the camp that Nagy absolutely needed to go, Pace could stay, but I think it's textbook definition of insanity to expect things to improve under him. I say this in spite of this past year's draft being pretty good by his standards, but a lot of the "good" picks are still question marks for a variety of reasons.

 

[BNB]

Nagy's offensive scheme was crap.
Pace was good at getting free agents, poor at drafting top round talents.

Both at fault, both needed to go.

Was the scheme crap because of poor talent though? If you recall, our O-line was pretty fuckin bad for a couple of years there. Like, one of the worst in the league bad. Add a lack of good targets and inconsistent play at QB, and how can we possibly expect the offense to look any good?

This doesn't excuse Nagy's multiple mishaps, but I also don't know if it's fair to toss the blame on Nagy when the talent on the offensive side of the ball just wasn't good.

Even the best offensive minds the league has ever seen have had awful seasons when they lacked talent.

With that being said, the lack of adjustments and the fact that we couldn't seem to get anything going for long stretches is why I agree that Nagy needed to go.

 

[BNB]

closest comparison I can make to Nagy is probably Trestman. Trestman at least had legitimacy in calling offenses, he just happened to be paired with the worst defenses in franchise history. which owes to the point that Fangio's defense propped up Nagy in 2018. Fangio then had delusions of grandeur that he was going to be a head coach and Nagy was then exposed. Pace came to a very broken team and did whatever he could to scotch tape and krazy glue it back together. there have been good offenses that had lesser players (cause the money was spent elsewhere) that got it done, so I don't think it's a problem with the Bears now that they have terrible players. the offensive line in even its halfass state is still better than Lovie Smith's latter post-Super Bowl years. Pace's problem is he had more big misses than little hits, and was prone to selling the farm for his reach picks which affected the rest of the drafts. I'm in the camp that Nagy absolutely needed to go, Pace could stay, but I think it's textbook definition of insanity to expect things to improve under him. I say this in spite of this past year's draft being pretty good by his standards, but a lot of the "good" picks are still question marks for a variety of reasons.

Good post.

Like I said to another poster, I guess it's just a matter of perspective.. If I HAD to choose, I probably would have chosen Nagy and tried getting a better GM to fill in the offensive talent and see how Nagy does. I also understand the other side of Nagy shitting the bed and Pace being the better of the two.

I feel like I'm harsher on Pace than you guys, while you all are harsher on Nagy than I am haha.

 

[Les Grossman]

Nagy and his offense are trash. With Fangio, his W-L record would be more in like with the product he was directly responsible for on the field, ie a shitty offense.

 

[Brandon Marshall]

Nagy had every excuse in the book going his way for why the offense didn't produce for years and years. Eventually you just need to figure that he is the problem and not everyone else.

I don't think the talent was great, but I think we did much less offensively than what we could have potentially done.

Pace was okay, but it is also time for a change. He had his flaws, but I think he can learn from them and have a more successful second stint if given the opportunity elsewhere. He will probably always be overly aggressive as a GM, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the contracts handed out are a big issue. In his defense, he learned in New Orleans where their strategy is to consistently kick the can down the road. If he lands elsewhere where their cap management style is different and he learns from it, he might end up being one of the better GMs one day.

 

[Broc]

But do you think we had good offensive talent?

No. The only actual blue chip talent on offense is Fields. Pace get's no credit for lucking into that.

If not, then is that really Nagy's fault?

No one is faulting Nagy for Pace being a shit GM.

People are faulting Nagy for being a shit coach.

• Massive ego (home office wallpapered with his Denny menus) that refused to deviate from his "scheme"
• Failed to adjust to the players he was given
• Terrible game plans literally every week
• Garbage playbook full of gimmicks and unimaginative route concepts (curls curls curls, wr screens to nowhere, etc)
• Team continually undisciplined and unprepared (even when they should be coming off byes and season openers)
• Garbage play caller (ex: his entire last game)
• Special person "BE YOU" nonsense
• Allowed "Club Dub" to continue 3 years longer than it should have

If yes, then are you saying that Pace actually wasn't bad?

Why do you think it has to be some either or thing?

Pace sucked at his job.
Nagy sucked at his job.
End of story.

Pace hitting a few mid/late rounders and lucking into Fields doesn't make up for all his other draft failures and baffling roster mismanagement. Likewise, Nagy getting carried by Fangio's D in 2018 doesn't make up for all the shit I listed above.

If you want to give Nagy a pass due to lack of talent knock yourself out but I'd argue he was given enough talent to field a better product than what he did.

A real coach would have accepted that he didn't have the horses to run his "scheme" and adjusted according to the talent he was given. This team would have been a consistent contender with a better coach who was willing to put his ego aside and simply do what's best for the team.

 

[dweebs19]

Even if the talent is subpar, if you're an offensive genius, you should at least be average or not at the bottom of the league in offense. There are teams I would consider with worse offensive talent who still finished ahead of the Bears in offensive scoring. That's why Nagy had to go. This doesn't mean Pace was great, but the talent on the offense wasn't the worst in the league

 

[pfcmsh]

Letting Lovie Smith go was a mistake. Does anyone know why that happened with his 10-6 record that season?

 

[DaaBears]

If anybody slept the last 4 years and just woke up and saw the very last game against the Vikings, you saw enough. 3 times on 4th and 1 ended with a QB sack, 3 of the 5 sacks in the game. Each and every one of them was very hard to comprehend. And the offense was moving the ball well. It's like sabotaging the end of each drive.

 

[Penny Traitor]

Even taking the players entirely out of the picture, those two were failing this team big time with shit cap management on Pace and shit game management on Nagy.

Pace being too reckless and shortsighted, while Nagy was stubborn to the point of being completely oblivious to game day scenarios.

They could have fielded nothing but Pro Bowlers and I still would have called for their firings.

 

[Penny Traitor]

Letting Lovie Smith go was a mistake. Does anyone know why that happened with his 10-6 record that season?

Because Phil Emery is the worst GM in NFL History.

 

[pfcmsh]

I remember Nagy's first Bear game vs Green Bay. We were up something like 20 points in the first half and then we lost badly in the 2nd half. The same thing happened over and over in many games. The first half was almost always our best half, even if we were not doing well. In Nagys first game against Green Bay, they adjusted and we did not. This happened over and over again. Last game against the Vikings was the same. We were outcoached in the 2nd half in the games. He refused to adjust or he didn't know how to adjust.

 

[MakeMyDay]

When?

IMO, it's been heading south the last couple of years.

When Nagy joined the team, I think we surpassed expectations. No one expected us to be 12-4 and potentially content for a SB if double doink didn't happen.

After that, the expectations were high because of the success we achieved in year 1 of Nagy. But honestly, the talent did not improve afterwards.

based on the talent level of this roster, I would say the Bears performed at about the level one would anticipate them to perform at.

The first year the DC's in the league got film on Nagy - This was his offense and he called the plays. So he had an advantage being unknown. Also everyone underestimates the importance of Jordan Howards ability to break through first and secondary defensive positions with his power.

After the first season DC's got onto his play calling and were able to call defenses on his tendencies - We still had Jordan the following season - but they were able to predict and stack the box or break into coverage.

Nagy also got a wholesale re-tool of his offensive staff- then there were notable things that exposed his incompetence.
- Leaving better O lineman on the bench and practice squad than he started the last season.
- Bill Lazor calling plays with better mix of Run-Pass and getting into the wild card game.
- Foles calls him out on his play calling


Our talent is still not quite there but I believe there is quite a delta with the talent we have and performance. Which means we couldn't compete offensively with anyone - Nagy has underperformed on just about every aspect in the offense -

He was hired to fix the offense and he failed completely after given multiple chances with many different coaches and players - They should have fired him after last season.

 

[Mdbearz]

Nagy was primarily responsible for running the offense and overseeing the defense. His offense was below average, so he failed at his primary responsibility.

Pace, failed also, he hired 2 failed coaches, his management of the cap was not very good, and his drafting was only average.

Both failed, both got fired.

Of the two, I think that Pace will be successful in the future, because I think he improved, where Nagy only regressed.

 

[Ares]

Pace built a roster with average to above average talent at most positions, and a handful of exceptional players, but he kept making the same mistake and that was to leave position groups with enormous gaping holes that reared their heads every single year.

Every year we had these holes at a position group and Pace was trying desperately to backfill it with street players.

He'd then focus on that problem the following season, fill it with average to above average talent, but then allow another position group to be left to rot.

This is why he deserved to be fired.



Nagy took the roster he was given, which was built more for power than finesse, and went pure finesse with power talent (aside from Cohen and Mooney).

That weird combo worked okay that first year, then people figured Nagy out and he never adjusted.

And beyond never adjusting, he clearly refused to make any attempt to build a power-I run game with play-action, nor build in any contingency plans to protect his 1st round rookie QB, or even protect his slow/old veteran QBs with limited mobility.

He could have won far more games, and kept his job, if he'd of just swallowed his enormous pride/ego and said "Bill (Lazor) can you please just design the offense, let me sprinkle in my ideas before you do, and I will honestly let you call a gameplan that takes advantage of the type of talent we have on the roster."

It was quite clear, even this year, all he needed to do to win some of those games was let the OLine grind it out and run Monty and Herbert over and over and over and over until the opposition was so fucking tired they couldn't defend any longer. (Like what the Packers kinda do to us with Rodgers and their passing game)

He simply refused to win, unless it was the Nagy-way, and unfortunately for him, the Nagy-way got Nagy fired, so maybe he should ask himself "Why did I allow my pride to dictate how I used the talent on my roster, instead of letting the talent dictate how I built my game plans?"

This is why he deserved to be fired.


I understand the OP's premise, but both of these men made grievous enough errors to warrant dismissal.

 

[FozzyBear]

Brownsville breeds champions.. Dunellen, NJ breeds real estate agents