Matt Nagy’s philosophy of resting his starters during preseason has seen its share of criticism over the last two years. Following Nagy’s decision to sit his starters in the third game of the 2018 preseason, he took it a step further in 2019, where he essentially rested all of his starters for all four games.
Nagy’s reasoning was that it wasn’t putting his players at risk for injuries when the games don’t count, following preseason injuries to Leonard Floyd and Adam Shaheen in 2018.
While that reasoning certainly makes sense, it also hinders the purpose of the preseason for starters, which is to get back in the rhythm of the game. And there’s no denying that the Bears offense could’ve used that preparation considering the horrendous season they had in Year 2 of Nagy’s scheme.
But Nagy will approach this preseason differently, opting to play his starters and give them valuable reps. While you figure some players won’t have substantial playing time in preseason, including defensive stars Khalil Mack and Akiem Hicks, the offense is certainly the unit that would benefit from that preparation and figuring things out early.
When talking with the Waddle & Silvy Show last Friday, Nagy said that he ultimately regretted his decision to rest his starters during last preseason, citing the experience and mentality as reasons why that’s going to change this year.
“As we talk, that’s one of the things that I look back at from last year that I’m not happy about that I made a decision to do in the preseason,” Nagy said, via Bryan Perez of NBC Sports. “No. 1, I think it’s good for them to have it, but No. 2 it sets the mentality. So that’s not going to happen this year.”
Another reason that the preseason is shaping up to be different this year are the position battles set to unfold, including most notably the quarterback competition between Mitchell Trubisky and Nick Foles. That battle will play into the preseason, where the on-field action will help determine who lines up under center for Week 1 against Detroit.