Chicago Bears: Matt Nagy hates to use young players

One of the criticisms of Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy is his handling of young players. We saw how bad he was developing Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields. Now, he’s doing it with Teven Jenkins. Just another reason he needs to go as soon as possible.

The Chicago Bears are mired in another disappointing season. They lost six of their last seven games and now own a dismal record of 4-8.

With their latest loss in Week 13 to the Arizona Cardinals, the Bears’ chances of making the playoffs this season dropped from 3 percent to 1 percent.

To that, head coach Matt Nagy says “So you’re saying we have a chance!”

Nagy seems to operate as if the team is close to making the playoffs. Now, don’t get me wrong. I want the Chicago Bears to win as much as possible. If they can win out the rest of the season it would be fun. The thing is, however, their playoffs chances are slim to none. Even if they do win their last five games, and the teams ahead of them lose out, their chances jump to 74 percent.

That means everything has to fall in place for five weeks. That is a very unlikely scenario. If they lose even one game, those odds drop precipitously.

Nagy still thinks that if the Bears win games his job will be safe. However, he’s wrong. The priority for the rest of the season should be developing the young players. We need to see how Justin Fields, Darnell Mooney, Trevis Gipson, etc. play when given more snaps. The Bears need to look forward to 2022.

The problem with Nagy is that in his time in Chicago, he hasn’t done a good job of developing young players. We saw what a disaster he was handling Mitchell Trubisky. Also, he wasn’t able to help get Anthony Miller to be a more consistent player.

This season, Nagy continued his streak of failing young players. We saw him completely mishandle FIelds. He fell in love with Andy Dalton and just about ignored Fields. He didn’t even give Fields at least some time with the starters during training camp. That caused a serious lack of chemistry between Fields and his receivers.

We’re seeing more of that now with offensive lineman Teven Jenkins. Jenkins was the Bears’ second-round pick in this year’s draft. He had a back injury that needed surgery and he missed the season until last week. The team activated him and he played in the game but only on special teams.

After the game, reporters asked Nagy about Jenkins and the role he’ll play the rest of the season. Nagy said that Jenkins would most likely remain as a backup.

"Just getting him into the groove, just getting him up active is good. J.P.’s (Jason Peters) been doing a good job there at left tackle. I love Teven’s attitude. We’ll just kind of take it day-by-day and see. But in the end I know we’ll make the best decision for him and us."

Peters has been very good at left tackle this season. However, at age 39 his better days are behind him. He is not in the future Chicago Bears plans. Jenkins is, though.

The thought is that he is the man to take over at left tackle, blocking FIelds’ blind side. However, before the draft, some scouts said he could move over to guard or right tackle.

The Bears need to find out where Jenkins fits in best. They need to see as much of him as possible before the season ends. Nothing gives you an idea of what a player has like seeing him in an actual game. You won’t get the full picture just watching him in practice.

This is not what will happen, though. We will see Jenkins give Peters a rest every now and then. This is another example of Nagy failing a young player.

Nagy continues to show that he is in over his head. The Bears have to fire him before the season ends. The young players can learn so much by playing instead of sitting and watching others play. Any of the other coaches can do a better job of helping them.