Jeff Hughes; Good Offensive Coaches Don’t Have Games Like Sunday

[soulman]

Good Offensive Coaches Don’t Have Games Like Sunday in Cleveland

Jeff Hughes | September 27th, 2021

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Trevor Lawrence is a rookie quarterback. And he’s struggling. But his coach isn’t going anywhere, barring those pesky “health issues” that seem to plague him at 12-month intervals and ultimately land him in a job that pays more money, usually from a university handing out taxpayer cash.

Zach Wilson is a rookie quarterback. And he’s struggling. But his coach isn’t going anywhere because this is his first year on the job and he’s overseeing a massive rebuild project.

Mac Jones is a rookie quarterback. And now he’s struggling too! (Welcome aboard, Mac!) But his is the greatest head coach in the history of the sport and he knows he has to endure the struggles of 2021 for the promise of 2022 and beyond.

Trey Lance is a rookie quarterback. And he’s playing in spurts, even while the starter struggles. But there’s no pressure on the head coach because he’s adored; even if some of us question the level of that adoration.

Justin Fields is a rookie quarterback. And Sunday, in Cleveland, he didn’t even have the opportunity to struggle because the performance of the offense around him was as bad as anything you can find in this league. Coaches. Linemen. Receivers. (Tight ends didn’t get on the field so they’re exempt.) Fields spent the afternoon running for his life. His coach? Let’s just take a few moments to look at the basics.

Offensive Rankings:

• 2018: Yards – 21st, Points – 9th (with a lot of help from the defense)
• 2019: Yards – 29th, Points – 29th
• 2020: Yards – 26th, Points – 22nd
• 2021, through three game: Yards – dead last, Points – one spot from dead last

 

Good offensive coaches don’t have games like Sunday in Cleveland. Good offensive coaches don’t go three (and now certainly four) seasons without cracking the top TWENTY in yards per game. Good offensive coaches find ways to produce offense despite whatever flaws their roster present. At this point there is simply no way to argue Matt Nagy is a good offensive coach. And if he’s not a good offensive coach, why is he the right individual to nurture the career of Justin Fields in Chicago? (Even if he is the one who drafted him.)

The focus of the 2021 season switched entirely to Nagy on Sunday. Fields is going to have the standard rookie campaign. Some highs. Many lows. Hopefully enough of the former to energize the organization and fans heading into next season. But Nagy now has an established resume of failure as an offensive architect and play caller. And if he is to somehow hold onto this job for another season, things would need to change dramatically over the next six weeks (before the bye) or 14 weeks (before the end of another .500 season or worse).

Will they? Possibly. But there’s no historical precedent to suggest it will happen. Nagy’s Sunday in Cleveland was so bad it amped up pressure to a level he certainly didn’t need with a rookie quarterback at the helm. (One could argue better handling of the situation all summer could have prevented a day like Sunday but one would be beating a dead horse.) Another Sunday like Cleveland and the calls for Nagy’s head will surely be unanimous.

And that he can’t survive.

[soulman]

Just now, soulman said:

Another Sunday like Cleveland and the calls for Nagy’s head will surely be unanimous.

I would submit that we don't even need to see another Sunday like that.  Think back to that opener against GB in 2019.  This was even worse.

There have been multiple games under Matt Nagy where the offense has failed to even produce a mediocre effort.  They've been downright putrid and in his entire career as Bears HC, it's principal offensive architect, and the offensive play caller the offense has continually failed to average even 20 points per game.

Jeff Hughes is right.  Good offensive coaches don't have games like that or careers like Nagy's.  Not when they want to keep their job.

[WindyCity]

We need to get Matt Nagy as far away from Justin Fields as possible.

[WindyCity]

It's over.

The only question is how much damage do Nagy and Pace do on their way out.

[Madmike90]

I was think about this on the drive to work this morning...how many head coaches in the NFL if they were fired would you say would struggle to then get another job? I would say the percentage is pretty low but honestly unless Nagy went back to being the coffee boy in KC what job would he realistically get in the NFL given how the last few years of our offence have gone? OC? Not a chance his offence is 6 yard curls and not much more...QB coach? After he failed with Mitch for years and seems to have made Fields look worse than he ever has? Nope...where does this guy go once he is out here?...the fact that is even a question shows you what a hole we are in.

[WindyCity]

 

[Sugashane]

3 minutes ago, WindyCity said:

 

I wish we could send these by telegraph to Virginia's old ***. 

[dll2000]

7 hours ago, WindyCity said:

It's over.

The only question is how much damage do Nagy and Pace do on their way out.

Agreed.  I would rip the band aid off now and make Lazer interim HC and fire both Pace and Nagy.   Bears won’t do it though.  They heart Pace.

 I think the team may be heading toward a Trestmanesque meltdown though. 

Nagy is close to losing locker room which is deathnell for any coach.  

 

[soulman]

5 hours ago, Madmike90 said:

I was think about this on the drive to work this morning...how many head coaches in the NFL if they were fired would you say would struggle to then get another job? I would say the percentage is pretty low but honestly unless Nagy went back to being the coffee boy in KC what job would he realistically get in the NFL given how the last few years of our offence have gone? OC? Not a chance his offence is 6 yard curls and not much more...QB coach? After he failed with Mitch for years and seems to have made Fields look worse than he ever has? Nope...where does this guy go once he is out here?...the fact that is even a question shows you what a hole we are in.

More than likely somewhere in the college ranks trying to reestablish his reputation in much the same way Mel Tucker did.  Nagy is still young enough to do that.  Or Andy Reid offers him a job again in KC.

IMHO there are far more mediocre to bad pro coaches than good ones which is why we often end up with those.

As Kaplan pointed out on his show virtually every offensive assistant Nagy has hired was actually out of pro football when they were hired; Castillo, Lazor, DeFilippo (fired twice), Barone.  Some of our best defensive assistants have also bailed over the past couple of years.  Why?

Then you have Nagy and his OC currently at odds over Fields readiness to start.  That happened just within the past week or so and then we see a game plan for Fields first start that looked like it was intentionally calculated to cause Fields to fail.  Was it?  Is that even possible?

To be honest I'm beginning to question Nagy's grasp on reality in the same way much of the country is feeling the same about TFG and his ongoing act over the election.  Words are worthless if Nagy can't even accept the reality that his way doesn't work.  He's failed as an NFL HC.

IMHO there's no other way to see it.  He has no longer has any place to hide.  It can no longer be about not having a QB who can run his scheme when every QB whose played it has also failed to produce with it and yesterday was a whole new bottom far below any previous one.

Any reasonably competent NFL HC will make adjustments during the game to what the other team is doing.  Nagy never does.  I question whether or not he's even able to.  How could he not double up with at least two blockers on Garrett as others do with Mack nearly every game?

During his 3 years and 3 games as Bears HC there are so many gripes against him and his offense from 3 years ago that have never been fixed why should we believe any comments he makes about fixing anything.  It never happens.  Sunday was the last straw and Pace needs to do it.

Edited September 28, 2021 by soulman

[soulman]

30 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

Agreed.  I would rip the band aid off now and make Lazer interim HC and fire both Pace and Nagy.   Bears won’t do it though.  They heart Pace.

 I think the team may be heading toward a Trestmanesque meltdown though. 

Nagy is close to losing locker room which is deathnell for any coach.  

 

It dawns on me that Nagy was selling real estate before he got his NFL coaching job and having watched many of his pressers over the past 3 plus years it's easy to see why he's was successful at sales.  In public he's upbeat and confident.  He knows how to get others to like him which can often work well in sales if your relationship with a buyer ends with the sale.

But guys like Nagy never seem to succeed in a sales position that requires consultative selling skills and an ongoing relationship with a buyer because over the long haul they simply cannot deliver on what they promise.  His "need to look at the films" schtick is a way of putting off questions anyone who actually watched what happened should be able to answer.

It's the equivalent of product knowledge and confidence your product will meet a buyers needs.

If every time I made a sales presentation to a buyer I had to consult a manual or a prospectus or a contract first before I was willing to answer a simple question how successful would I ever have been in my chosen career?  Not very.  He's the HC for phuc sake.  It's his team and yet he feigns ignorance as if he doesn't even know his own players and what wasn't done correctly.

If I'm his buyer I've lost faith in his ability to supply me with whatever product or service I'm buying from him.  He's unable to supply what I need but keeps suing for more time to fix the problems he has doing it when by now I know there is no fix.  He simply doesn't have it.  If Pace, GMcC, and Teddy Bears can't see this by now they have no business keeping their jobs either.

The only reason they can even think about getting away with continuing to sell Matt Nagy's Bears football is they are a sole supplier of the product for Chicago fans.  You all can't buy their same product elsewhere but you can stop buying the product at all and you should.  We can talk about accountability 'til hell freezes over but until Chicago fans hold Phillips and the McCaskey's accountable nothing will change.

[GBHalas]

The ONLY way Nagy keeps his job is give the offense to Lazor. Those three weeks were the only time the Bears looks like a professional offense.  The make shift offensive line opened holes for Montgomery and Trubisky looked like a professional quarterback.  Last year I brought up that it may be Nagy and not Trubisky and no one really agreed.  I think there's proof to my hypothesis. Nagy needs to be the guy on the sidelines with NOTHING in his hands and over seeing the entire team like other head coaches. If he can't agree to that then he should be let go

[BeaReylo]

7 hours ago, Madmike90 said:

I was think about this on the drive to work this morning...how many head coaches in the NFL if they were fired would you say would struggle to then get another job? I would say the percentage is pretty low but honestly unless Nagy went back to being the coffee boy in KC what job would he realistically get in the NFL given how the last few years of our offence have gone? OC? Not a chance his offence is 6 yard curls and not much more...QB coach? After he failed with Mitch for years and seems to have made Fields look worse than he ever has? Nope...where does this guy go once he is out here?...the fact that is even a question shows you what a hole we are in.

I wouldn't hire Nagy to be my janitor at this point.  😠

[Sugashane]

1 hour ago, GBHalas said:

The ONLY way Nagy keeps his job is give the offense to Lazor. Those three weeks were the only time the Bears looks like a professional offense.  The make shift offensive line opened holes for Montgomery and Trubisky looked like a professional quarterback.  Last year I brought up that it may be Nagy and not Trubisky and no one really agreed.  I think there's proof to my hypothesis. Nagy needs to be the guy on the sidelines with NOTHING in his hands and over seeing the entire team like other head coaches. If he can't agree to that then he should be let go

 

Am I nothing to you?!?! Don't you dare forget me!

I've been dumping on Nagy's playcalling since his first game here! The repetitive screens to Gabriel that kept losing yards still pisses me off. lol

As for being on the sidelines, unless he's handing out water to the players he needs to be in the stands. Not the sidelines. I'm getting the paralysis by analysis vibe from him.

[soulman]

9 hours ago, GBHalas said:

The ONLY way Nagy keeps his job is give the offense to Lazor. Those three weeks were the only time the Bears looks like a professional offense.  The make shift offensive line opened holes for Montgomery and Trubisky looked like a professional quarterback.  Last year I brought up that it may be Nagy and not Trubisky and no one really agreed.  I think there's proof to my hypothesis. Nagy needs to be the guy on the sidelines with NOTHING in his hands and over seeing the entire team like other head coaches. If he can't agree to that then he should be let go

Agreed then and now.  I read one article that said that may be on the table again but with Nagy who knows.  He's says he likes calling plays too much. 

He's like a kid who gets one of those machines for his birthday that blows up balloons .  He keeps inflating them 'til they burst but won't let anyone else play with his balloon machine.  Someone needs to either take away the balloons or the machine.

[GBHalas]

8 hours ago, Sugashane said:

 

Am I nothing to you?!?! Don't you dare forget me!

I've been dumping on Nagy's playcalling since his first game here! The repetitive screens to Gabriel that kept losing yards still pisses me off. lol

As for being on the sidelines, unless he's handing out water to the players he needs to be in the stands. Not the sidelines. I'm getting the paralysis by analysis vibe from him.

My apologies.  You are not forgotten