It’s a weekly routine that Chicago Bears fans are tired of hearing: Matt Nagy talking in a confused state about the offense’s struggles and promising to work toward finding answers to what appears like an unsolvable problem.
He was at it again Monday night after the Bears’ 24-10 loss to the Rams, one in which Chicago’s defense was responsible for the team’s only touchdown.
Nick Foles, who Nagy and GM Ryan Pace hand-picked this offseason as the quarterback who can right a ship led astray by Mitch Trubisky, played like the guy who’s been on five teams in nine years. Running back David Montgomery would’ve created clouds of dust if his two-yard runs in L.A. were on grass. The offensive line looked like it was afraid of Aaron Donald, which, yeah, it’s hard to blame them for that.
This all circles back to Nagy, who was as confused as ever when he met with the media after the game.
“It’s not clicking right now,” he said. “It’s not. As any competitor, and I’m as competitive a person as there is, that’s the part where I have to challenge myself to stay patient and challenge myself to not get frustrated as well and continue to keep coaching to the best I can and look at everything.
“So I have to be able to rely on our other coaches on the staff that I have a lot of belief in — and I’m talking across the board, all three phases, but in particular offensively. What do we do? And how (did) we get to this point? I hate to feel repetitive, but that’s the only thing we can do. We’re 5-2. … We built this little cushion, and now it’s our job to be able to use it and not lose it.”
What do we do? How did we get to this point? You hate to feel repetitive?
Come on, coach. You can do better than that. Just like you can do better than tossing the ball to Cordarrelle Patterson on a critical 4th-and-1 late in the game.
There’s no easy fix to the Bears’ offensive woes. They’re three Nagy-years in the making. Chicago doesn’t have a franchise quarterback to lean on, they don’t have an offensive line filled with Pro Bowlers, and they don’t have a do-it-all running back who can cover for the offense’s other shortcomings.
Instead, what they need is a play-caller who can outsmart opposing defenses and play to his team’s strengths.
As long as Nagy remains in charge of those duties, the Bears don’t have that either.