Chicago Bears: Matt Nagy bowing to pressure in 2020 preseason

Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy is changing his ways in the preseason

Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy showed in his first two seasons that when he makes a decision he’ll defend it as much as he can. He’ll explain his thinking as thoroughly as possible and stands by that decision. Until now, that is.

In his first two seasons as head coach, Nagy drew criticism for sitting his starters for nearly the entire preseason. When he sat his starters in the third preseason game, the one where the starters usually play into the third quarter, in 2018, many in Chicago acted as if he tried to shoot Staley the Bear. Beat writers wrote as if the apocalypse was upon us.

Nagy defended his decision like he was defending his character. In the postgame press conference, he stood in front of all the media looking for his blood and he took each question and explained his rationale. He even shooed away his handler who tried to end the presser, per ABC News.

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"“This is just about us where we’re at right now. We had five preseason games. And let me tell you something, I have no issue at all with five preseason games. I think, matter of fact, it’s great. Because what we get to do is we get to check out the depth on our team … for instance today, we got some twos in there that got to play against starters. That’s invaluable.”"

That season, the Chicago Bears played in the Hall of Fame Game so they had five preseason games.

In the preseason of 2019, however, Nagy did it again. The starters played on only a handful of plays.

The reigning thought is that playing the starters help them during the season. Here’s the thing though — he sat the starters in 2018 and the Bears went 12-4 and won the NFC North. After doing the same in 2019, the Bears went 8-8 and finished third in the division. They scored 23 points in their Week 1 game in 2018 but scored only three in 2019.

There isn’t really any evidence that playing the starters for an extended time helps or hurts them during the season. It certainly didn’t hurt the defensive starters. They were the number one defense in 2018. Yes, they went down to fourth in 2019, but maybe injuries had something to do with that. At any rate, the unit was still elite even though the starters didn’t play. The backups did, though, and they played well when they stepped in for injured starters.

Nagy bows to pressure with Chicago Bears for 2020

Recently Nagy gave an interview on ESPN 1000’s Waddle and Silvy Show in Chicago. He changed course from the previous two seasons and said he made a mistake not playing the starters more.

"That’s one of the things that I look back at from last year, that I’m not happy about that . . . decision. No. 1, I think it’s good for them to have [preseason snaps], but No. 2, it sets the mentality. So that’s not going to happen this year."

Did Nagy give in to all the pressure? After he gave that interview, the media were patting themselves on the back for playing a part in his turnaround. Here is the headline from the Chicago Sun-Times: “Matt Nagy finally sees the light.”

Why the change of heart? Nagy was very adamant when he defended his move originally. Now, however, he’s regretful of that same move?

There is nothing wrong with a coach changing his mind on a move he thought was right at the time he made it. If he analyzed the move and saw how much the move was wrong and decided to change his mind that’s fine.

If, on the other hand, he’s just bowing to the mounting pressure coming from the media and fans, then it’s a problem. If he bows to this, will he bow to pressure on who starts?

It’s understandable to give players more playing time. There are a few battles for some positions this preseason than there were in the previous two years. That means those players need to play more snaps to determine a winner. That could be a reason for the change but Nagy didn’t use that. He just said he was wrong, something many wanted to hear from him.

A good coach is someone who stands by his moves, explains it in the middle of the storm of questions, understands the criticism, and if he feels he’s wrong, admit it. If this is what Nagy did that’s great. He was so insistent that what he did was right, though,  so this feels like he’s bowing to the pressure by suddenly reversing himself. Let’s hope it’s the former and not the latter.