The Beast

Okay, so they did fire Pace and Nagy rather than just going after the scapegoat. Now it makes sense to do what the Bulls did and bring in a football Artūras Karnišovas and bring in the GM and coach from there. Now we need to see what happens to Phillips and Desai (I predict he will be gone but may get an interview for his job).

For those who get the Chicago Tribune, read Brad Biggs’ ten thoughts column - the parts where he mentions the candidates for head coach and GM and what head coaches and GMs would ask during about during their interviews were interesting. https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-cb-chicago-bears-brad-biggs-10-thoughts-20220110-ikzhm3kjinbbnkkecec4hvcarq-story.html

Cool.

At least you give people a fair shake. Plenty of fans just find the first reason to fire a Bears coach and drum the beat louder when things get worse. I just thought of the possibility because it’s the Bears.

Compared to the other coaches the Bears have had since I started watching in 1998, Matt Nagy was one of my favorites next to Lovie Smith, which is because they were probably the most successful ones (which isn’t saying much). I like how his players respected him and didn’t quit. I like him as a person. I was intrigued by him with his first year’s offense and thought he had an interesting offense. I felt like if more players executed in specific games, his record would have been better as a coach. I think the Bears fan base has a quick knee jerk reaction when it comes to coaches and GMs. There are plenty of fans who just love to b**** and not think through solutions, they just turn up the volume of whatever is wrong and don’t think through any viable solutions. Many of them just diagnose Nagy as the problem when he’s just a scapegoat of the problem. They look at Mike Ditka and think he’s a god because he and the team he had won one super bowl in he mid-80s. He has “passion” and “fire” and they want to see that out of their coach, as if that actually does anything. Unfortunately for Nagy, players like Hicks, Jackson, Robinson and Graham fizzled out and became nothing. Sure, Nagy had a say in some personnel but I can think of winnable games that they could and probably should have had over the years, especially against the Vikings, Steelers, Ravens, Chargers and the infamous Eagles game where players didn’t perform and they lost. Nagy had his failures with the quarterbacks and the offense, but over the years, I have wondered what this fan base truly expects out of their offense. Some probably expect Drew Brees and the Saints or Peyton Manning, but the Bears have never had that. With the personnel Nagy had, I couldn’t see how they’d be that good. They should have been better than what they were though and I did get sick of all of the penalties (Akiem Hicks is the biggest culprit) and any down and long situations. And the losing streaks were bad too…as well as the fact that he had to give up play calling and they weren’t really in many big time games. If Nagy gets canned and Pace stays, I hope the fan base recognizes that firing the coach won’t fix everything. Pace hamstrung this team with some of the contracts doled out and the trading up in the draft over the years, which forced them to put out garbage in the secondary and force the rest of the defense to be perfect. And regardless of who is hired, I doubt we will see a turnaround next year or sustained success. That’s the cynical fan in me. I personally hope he gets another shot as OC and if Andy Reid loses Bienemy, that he becomes the OC and when Reid retires, he gets the head coaching job. I’d love to see what he would implement with Mahomes, even if I doubt it would happen. Regardless, I wish Nagy the best.

Add the media calling for his head too. More subtle than the fans, but there was consistent pressure applied from the media for him to go. I’d love to see the anger, even if it won’t happen. I hope Nagy gets an OC job next year or the year after and becomes a HC again.

Any takers on the scenario (however unlikely) that both stay one more year? Or are we all set on Nagy going and Pace staying or both of them getting canned?

Something I hope some of the Bears fan base gets through their thick heads.

I would rather him not play for fear that he would hurt himself (like an ACL tear) at the end of a meaningless season. His off-season is obviously going to be critical to getting better for next year.

I was in a bit of an emotional mood, but I really liked “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” with Tom Hanks. I’m a big fan of his and the role he plays in many movies.

Hence why I am hoping the wood in the fence holds for a little while longer and inflation didn’t hit garage doors or paint too hard (even though it probably did!). Patience is another good thing to work on.

I’d like to paint the house blue as opposed to reddish brown and get a garage door that doesn’t look like it is from the 80’s (diamond shaped wooden garage that is brown). And eventually replace the fence that has cedar wood instead of a stronger washed wood. It all depends on the budget so we will see what we get done this year…

Imagine being the idiot that didn’t start him.

One million dollars. Even voluntary coverage through group term life insurance would be great for people. $250,000 to $1,000,000 in coverage for a decent price with just some paperwork seems worth it to protect your family’s financial future.

Close to $750,000 raised for Parker with donations by the Bears, Eagles, Rams, Blackhawks, Adam Schefter, Andy Dalton, Anthony Rizzo, Jed Hoyer, Tom Ricketts and Jay Glazer. Pretty cool.

Lol John Schoop? You’ve got to be joking. Remember the screens on third down? I hate the wild cat, shifting and moving Montgomery from the side to the backfield too but Nagy is much better than John Schoop. I would have sat Fields for most of this year and let Dalton and Foles play so he could sit and learn. He got rushed into starting even though I liked the way they brought him in the first few games. I would also like the same offense you describe and don’t understand why they don’t do that. I watched the Dolphins last night and wished that the Bears would run plays like what they ran, they made it look easy. Agreed on offensive line and considering hiring Bowles who would then bring in a coordinator. Agreed. Pace dealing high picks and missing is one of the reasons why I can’t stand him. It’s one of the reasons why I didn’t like trading up to get Fields since I thought they would be better off getting a lineman in the first round and a quarterback in a later round, then bring in a veteran/give Foles a shot in 2022. I don’t think they are falling behind because a handful of teams fired their coaches. It won’t hurt them to lose out on two hires as it will hurt them with the interview research they will miss out on upfront…unless George is already making calls. I hope you are right about Pace. I can think of one who didn’t appear to be thrilled about getting drafted by them on Draft Day. I wouldn’t be opposed to Bieniemy, given his experience. I just hope he’s the right hire. I bet the Jags end up with Leftwich if they are allowed to interview him. Fox just did a special on him I believe, or promoted a special someone else made.

That may be true, but the offense “flowed” better than in recent years. Having said that, I also would love to know what Bears fans expect to see out of the offense. Do they expect to see something like KC or Tampa? Well how do they get there? What scheme or personnel do they need to do that? These may be good questions for football executives and coaches to answer, but I hear and see a lot of complaining about things without any thinking or discourse on what they want to see. The same bitching happened with Jay Cutler and Lovie Smith and nobody could give even ideas on who to replace those guys with. The same applies to the offense.

I want him to get another head coaching job if he gets canned. I think he can replicate and maintain that offense he had in 2018 but with the right players. He does need to learn to adapt better and give up the play calling since I think his coaching strength is being the CEO and not the play caller. But I’m also a Nagy fan and didn’t jump ship on him like others did after years two or three. He probably sold himself as a guru or maybe Pace and the Bears thought he was and maybe he couldn’t meet those expectations as play caller and also be the head coach. I look forward to the changes but it would be weak if they just fired Nagy and Pace got to hire a third coach. The underlying issues of their failures still would remain.

What would you all have done after Graham scored? One or two points?

Nagy has to know he is gone, just look at his body language and demeanor. I wonder if he knew he was done at Thanksgiving and was given the option to finish off the gear. They don’t solve anything firing just Nagy, Pace being fired has to happen for improvements to happen. I read somewhere that Phillips may retire or go to business operations to finish his career rather than be fired. I would love to know what Foles saw in front of him, he could have had that first down with his legs.

https://www.fieldgulls.com/platform/amp/2021/4/8/22372474/baltimore-ravens-nfl-rule-change-adding-booth-umpire-2021 Maybe the NFL needs more of this and the umpire can correct the calls with intel from the booth. It can’t be the easiest thing seeing some things with how fast the game goes in real-time.

It isn’t the only thing to talk about, Brad Biggs wrote more about the return on the highly paid players this year and the salary cap numbers in 2022 which was fairly interesting. He talked about the possibilities of who would stay or go and what he thinks will happen. I haven’t started the conversation about firing Pace and moving Phillips because it has been discussed here on other pages. Names have also been thrown out for GM and aside from Michael Lombardi I am not aware of any president types like the Bulls found in AK and the Cubs found in Epstein. So I would rather discuss Pace’s replacement since I know some GM names. And since Nagy is probably getting canned I would rather look ahead than dissect the tape from the season and relitigate it over and over. Like I said, at least here you have actual conversation whereas on social media and with some media types they can’t get past “Fire Nagy” talk. You would hope that crowd would dissect more than Nagy’s body of work and look at the moves Pace made and do a deep dive there. I truly do hope they do know the failings of Pace and Phillips. Amen. The bitching about the offense, the quarterback and the coach. Rinse and repeat.

It’s just the same old discussion week in, week out and I am not talking about here. It’s fans on Twitter, it’s the media, it’s the Score, it’s the same narrative everywhere. Like somehow firing Nagy will cure all ills and doing so before the end of the year will make things better. The level of discussion with people who just say Fire Nagy is so low, they need to be pressed on the other issues of the team to get more details on what they want to see happen than the head coach getting fired. I guess raising the level of discussion with fans is too much to ask though.

I was thinking about how these December/January parts of a lost season are common for the Bears under many coaches since I started watching in 1998. It’s truly sad that the best head coach I have seen during that time was Lovie Smith, who at least was consistent during that time. I was excited when Nagy got the job, thought the first year was fun and that if he could keep up that offense and the defense played like it had, he could be here for a while and they could get past the first or second round of the playoffs. The drop off was significant for a variety of reasons. Injuries, tape catching up to Nagy, players not performing like they had, roster crunches and bad investments were all part of it. Nagy will take the fall, but Pace deserves a lot of the blame too. If Nagy gets canned, I really don’t want Pace and Phillips to be around in the same capacity or at all. And I definitely want to see replacements for guys in the secondary (last night was only part of the body of work), for Allen Robinson, Jimmy Graham, Nick Foles, Akiem Hicks, other wideouts, Eddie Goldman and to try and get picks, Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn. They may not be able to trade Mack or Quinn, given their salaries, but they may be the only trade chips they have on the roster to get picks back. Then maybe they can build a more balanced team around Fields, Montgomery and Smith. And maybe they will have a GM and coach that have personnel that is a better fit for the team and scheme they have. After Nagy gets canned, hopefully some fans will raise the level of discussion and think of something more to say than the predictable two words you hear from crowds or on Twitter in this city.

Sure, fire Nagy. That will fix everything, all of the underlying issues!