Matt Nagy Did Something Most Thought Impossible This Offseason
Academy Award-winning actor Mickey Rourke had a great quote once. “The hardest thing is life to do is change.” This can apply to just about anything. Including the occupation of being an NFL head coach. Matt Nagy knew what he wanted to do when he took over the Chicago Bears. He had a plan. He’d seen a similar one work for his friend and mentor Andy Reid in both Philadelphia and Kansas City.
All he had to do was implement it.
It didn’t take long for him to learn another great quote though. “The greatest enemy of a good plan is the pursuit of a perfect one.” Nagy came to a realization last season. His offensive system wasn’t working. Mitch Trubisky seemed lost. The running game was absent. There was no sense of identity. The unit finished 29th overall in the league.
Going into the offseason, he had to confront a lot of truths. It started with a look in the mirror. Could he go into 2020 with that same offense and expect different results? The answer wasn’t long in coming. Nagy overhauled most of the staff on that side of the ball, bringing in several names with a wealth of NFL experience.
Together they took a long look at what was done last year and seemed to reach a simple conclusion. This needs to change.
Matt Nagy showcased a very different offense in Detroit
When the Bears unveiled their new offense against the Lions on opening day, it looked nothing like what they’d run the year before. Mitch Trubisky was under center far more often and the team committed to running the ball followed by heavy doses of play action. The results were more than encouraging. Nagy admitted that the change came from the evaluations done during the offseason.
“This is Year 3 for us and you start looking as to what are the strengths of your players? We did some good self-scout here in the offseason,” Nagy said. “We tried to look at some different things, and you could see that going under center was something that we evaluated.”
In his career, Mitch Trubisky has a passer rating of 84.6 when operating out of shotgun.
He has a passer rating of 96.84 when operating under center.
I wonder why the #Bears suddenly decided to start playing under center more?
— Erik Lambert (@ErikLambert1) September 18, 2020
By my count Mitch Trubisky was 7-of-10 for 109 yards off play action last Sunday.
One of those incompletions would've gone for a big gain if Jimmy Graham hadn't mistimed his jump.#Bears
— Erik Lambert (@ErikLambert1) September 18, 2020
This is something fans clamored for going back almost a year. Stop trying to make Trubisky something he isn’t. Lean into what he does well. Let him work off play action, use his feet on bootlegs, and use the running game to ease the pressure on him. The results speak for themselves. It may not be great, but it’s considerably better than what they got a year ago.
That Nagy was willing to put his ego aside and make the adjustments is a testament to his character.