Chicago Bears: Matt Nagy needs to take responsibility for his deficiencies

Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy needs to shoulder some responsibility.

There was such high hope for the Chicago Bears offense when head coach Matt Nagy pulled starter Mitchell Trubisky and put in Nick Foles. Foles has a better handling of this system and has experience working with the new coaching staff. Foles’ fourth-quarter magic against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 3 raised hopes even higher.

Well, things didn’t work out in Foles’ debut as the starter. He did complete 62 percent of his passes but most of those were short and intermediate passes. Deep accuracy is his forte, yet he had difficulty completing those passes against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 4.

Part of the reason for the difficulty has to do with Foles not having a rapport with his receivers yet. There were no preseason games this year, so he hasn’t been able to learn his receivers’ tendencies, where they like the ball, how they run their routes. It’s one thing to throw to them in practice, but another thing doing so in games. In addition, with the quarterback battle going on he and Trubisky split the snaps.

A big reason for the difficulties, however, falls on the lap of head coach Matt Nagy. He hasn’t done either Foles or Trubsiky any favors with not only his playcalling but also his tendencies.

Nagy said in the offseason that he knows the Bears need to run the ball more. This is what he said about the matter, per 670 The Score:

"When you look at the last couple years with where we’ve been, we reflect and we understand that we need to be better in the run game. When your run game isn’t quite as good as you want it to be, at that time, it’s hard to call runs. At the same time, we need to do whatever’s best for our team. We need to adjust and adapt as coaches to who our players are."

In the past, when the running game started out slow, he abandoned it and just tried to pass his way out of the problem. Whenever he did go back to the run, the running back had trouble getting going. For example, in Week 1 of the 2019 season, he only ran the ball 15 times. Three of them were by Trubisky. Starter David Montgomery had only six runs. The running game cannot get a rhythm going when there are so few opportunities.

It appeared that Nagy improved his running strategy in the first three games of the season. He kept feeding the running backs and they got the yards needed to help succeed. In 2019, the Bears had just five games in which they rushed for over 100 yards. This season, they rushed for over 100 yards in each of their first three games.

Then Week 4 happened and Nagy reverted to his old ways.

Matt Nagy needs to step up and own his deficiencies as Chicago Bears head coach.

The Colts came in with the highest-ranked defense in the NFL. They started the game holding down the running game. Nagy panicked, however. He ran the ball 11 times in the first half. It wasn’t working, with Montgomery leading the rushers with just 15 yards. Nagy then decided to abandon it. In the second half, he ran the ball just five times. Again, you cannot get into a rhythm without having enough touches.

Nagy also telegraphed his plays. Adam Hoge of NBC Sports Chicago gave this observation from the game:

"Starting with the Bears’ final drive of the second quarter and encompassing the entire third quarter, the Bears ran the ball four times, all from under center, and threw the ball 12 times, all out of shotgun."

This is basic youth football stuff. When you do what Nagy did, it makes it easier for the opposing defense to dominate. “Oh, the quarterback is under center? Okay, stack the line because they’re running. Shotgun? Okay, back up because they’re passing.”

There needs to be a good mix in the playcalling. When you get into a pattern, you cannot really have a consistent game plan. Also, he needs to remember that without an effective running game you don’t have an effective offense.

The offensive woes aren’t all on the players. As Nagy keeps saying, it’s the job of the coaches to put the players in a position to succeed. Nagy didn’t do that last week. Hopefully, that doesn’t become the norm for the rest of the season.