Bears made right move hiring Matt Nagy
The Kansas City Chiefs blew an 18-point lead in the Wild Card game against the Tennessee Titans on Saturday night. Many believed the ramifications would spread to offensive coordinator Matt Nagy.
Matt Nagy, 39, was promoted to co-offensive coordinator last year. He worked alongside Brad Childress before being given the job himself this season. Alex Smith has had a career year. Kareem Hunt leads the league in rushing. Both Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce are having 1,000-yard campaigns. As a result, Nagy became a hot name in the head coaching carousel. Then Saturday happened, and most believed that would be curtains for his opportunity this time around.
Instead, the Chicago Bears didn’t waver and hired Nagy on Monday morning, making sure they got their man. For the Bears, the decision to go with an offensive-minded head coach was an easy choice considering the quarterback situation. After spending draft capital to trade up and select Mitchell Trubisky out of North Carolina last April, everything over the next few seasons becomes about developing the youngster to the best of his abilities.
Matt Nagy should be the right man for that job. He got the best out of Smith, somewhat of a damaged commodity after years of rifling through head coaches and offensive coordinators as a young buck with the San Francisco 49ers. Smith blossomed under Jim Harbaugh and Andy Reid. Although hebecame a force in 2017 under Nagy’s guidance, topping 4,000 passing yards (in 15 games) for the first time in his career.
This year, Trubisky took over for Mike Glennon after four games and never gave the job back despite some uneven efforts. The rookie ended up throwing for 2,193 yards with seven touchdowns and seven interceptions while completing 59.4 percent of his throws. In December, Trubisky showed progress, hitting on better than 65 percent of his attempts with two games of more than 270 passing yards.
General manager Ryan Pace landed the right tutor for Trubisky on the sideline, easily the most important part of this offseason. However, Pace now needs to get some better weapons for him on the outside. Kendall Wright led Chicago’s receivers with 614 yards, while nobody else topped 380. If Trubisky is going to move toward his ceiling as a player over the next few seasons, he needs Pace to provide him with legitimate talent in the receiving corps.
For now, though, the Bears fans should be thrilled. Nagy is both successful and young, making this hire a very high-upside move. If Nagy works out, he could be in the Windy City for 20 years. That’s kind of stability Chicago hasn’t had since the days of Mike Ditka.
Nagy may have had a rough Saturday, but the Bears rightfully saw past that and landed their man.
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