Last week, Bears rookie quarterback Justin Fields had his first NFL start, and it was an abject disaster. With head coach Matt Nagy as the play-caller, and Nagy waiting around for Andy Dalton to be healthy, and then finding out that Dalton wasn’t going to be able to go against the Browns, Fields was given a leaky boat full of anchors, and he responded accordingly. With one of the worst systems you’ll ever see for a young quarterback, Fields completed six of 20 passes for 68 yards. He was sacked nine times for 67 yards, which obviously left Fields with one net passing yard. Nagy refused to give Fields the benefits of play-action and pre-snap motion. He refused to acknowledge him as a runner. He refused to give him favorable route combinations at any level of the field.
It was a fireable offense. But the Bears as an organization have never fired a head coach in-season, and they’ve been around since 1920, so it wasn’t going to happen now. However, and quite fortunately, Nagy was convinced to hand over the play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Bill Lazor in Week 4 against the Lions. Fields’ day wasn’t perfect, but it was much better. He completed 11 of 17 passes for 209 yards, no touchdowns, one interception off a deflection, and just one sack — which Fields said after the game was on him.
Nagy has insisted that Dalton will be the no-matter-what starter when he’s healthy, and we all know that, and it makes no sense, but perhaps the most distressing thing about Nagy right now is his desperate need to claim credit for a win that would not have been possible had he not walked away from offensive play-calling duties.
“Yeah, so in regards to the play calling, Bill did a great job, and I think that at the same point in time, it’s important that we understand that I had to — I felt good out there as a head coach, and that’s real,” Nagy said after the game. “But we all get together. We talk through how we’re going to call the game, and we do that when I’m calling plays, too. Us as a staff, we get together. So I think that that’s important for everybody to know is that when we build a game plan together, whether it’s the offensive line coach with Juan or whether it’s our tight ends coach or wide receiver coach, et cetera, we do it together, and in the end, I get a great opportunity to say yes, I like this, or no, I don’t.
“As the head coach, right, in charge of all that, that’s real. When you do that now, I also go back to saying last week, right, or — last week was hey, whatever I need to do to try to be the best head coach for the Chicago Bears, whatever that is, I don’t care, I just want us to have the best opportunity to win, and I feel like Bill did a great job today. Our players did a great job. Our coaching staff did a great job, and we played collectively together as a team, not just players, not just coaches, everybody.
“When you have that, it’s a good feeling. So we’ll continue to just keep talking. We’ll continue to — but again, with all due respect, all due respect, this is going to be the last time I talk about it.”
Nagy was then asked whether Lazor would continue to call plays going forward, and that’s where he short-circuited. It’s an entirely reasonable question given the massive uptick in Fields’ performance with Lazor at the wheel, but he wasn’t having it.
“Like I said — you’re unbelievable. You try — listen, I hope you understand, I get it. I get it. I get it. But just know, like that’s it. No more with this.”
A confident coach would go out of his way to praise his offensive coordinator after a game like this. One of the reasons Nagy, the former Chiefs offensive coordinator, got this job in the first place is that Andy Reid has to be restrained from telling people how great his coaches are. But that’s the situation as it stands. We don’t know how long Fields will be the starter. We don’t know how long it will be before Nagy takes the call sheet over again. But for now, we can enjoy several examples of an offense that worked for a rookie quarterback coming off a disastrous first NFL start. While Nagy wants to keep this all on the QT, we’ll praise the difference with Lazor.
Because it was crushingly obvious. Let’s look at the big-time throws against the Lions to see what they tell us. Fields completed one pass of 20 or more air yards in three attempts for 21 yards before Sunday’s game. Against Detroit, he attempted six such passes, completing four for 151 yards. And they each tell a story of the successful partnership between Lazor and Fields.