Matt Nagy was not the first name that came to mind when the Chicago Bears began their coaching search back in January. GM Ryan Pace knew what he wanted. That was a young offensive mind who could grow with quarterback Mitch Trubisky and hopefully return the team to success after so many years of disappointment.
It became a case of not looking for the “best” option to Pace. He and the team brass were looking for the right one. Somebody who fits Chicago. Somebody who wanted to be there. Not somebody who felt entitled to be there. When Nagy’s name was announced as the choice, it caught a lot of people by surprise.
Over time, we’ve all started to see what Pace envisioned when he reached the decision to make him the next head coach. As it turns out, the rise of Nagy has taken on a remarkable similarity to another former head coach. None other than Pittsburgh Steelers icon Bill Cowher. That might sound like an unusual comparison.
When you start to see the connections though, you’ll be shocked.
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Matt Nagy comes from the east coast like Cowher
Cowher was born and raised in Pittsburgh. He was built in that blue collar style and understood the city and its people better than anybody. It’s not a coincidence that so many great coaches come out of that east coast region. Nagy should know. He was born less than 350 miles away in Dunellen, New Jersey. He came up in that same gritty style where he had to work doubly hard to get everything he got.
Both stayed on the east coast in college, Cowher at N.C. State and Nagy at Delaware. Both went undrafted. Cowher managed to latch on as a backup in the NFL but Nagy went on to star in the Arena League. Both saw their playing careers end before their 30th birthdays.
He was hired by and worked only for a winning coach famous for no titles
Cowher had planned to keep playing in 1985 until he got a call from new Cleveland Browns head coach Marty Schottenheimer who offered him an assistant position as special teams coach. Cowher accepted and began working his way up the ladder. Schottenheimer became famous for two things: winning a lot of games and coming up short in the playoffs.
Cowher didn’t seem to care. After Schottenheimer was unceremoniously fired in 1989, he followed his mentor to Kansas City where they revived the Chiefs franchise. All told they made the playoffs six times together but never reached the Super Bowl.
Nagy can relate. He hadn’t really planned on coaching in 2008 but a recommendation from a friend Brett Veach got him an interview with Andy Reid in Philadelphia. It went well and he became an offensive assistant for the Eagles. Like Schottenheimer, Reid is an excellent coach known for winning a lot of games but hasn’t won a championship in all that time.
Like Cowher, Nagy didn’t care and followed him to Kansas City after the man was fired in 2012. There they revived a struggling Chiefs team. All told? Yep. They made the playoffs six times together.
Got head coaching job at a young age…from Kansas City
Where the coincidences start to get really weird is the fact that both men were hired after brief periods as coordinators at a young age from the Kansas City Chiefs. Cowher was the defensive coordinator for just three seasons there before the Steelers came calling in 1992. He was just 35-years old at the time. The youngest head coach in the league.
Nagy? He became offensive coordinator in 2016 and spent just two seasons at the job before the Bears came calling this year. He was 39-years old at the time and became the second-youngest head coach ever hired in franchise history.
Took over a team in midst of a long down period
When Cowher arrived his first year, the Steelers were not the glorious team they’d been over a decade prior. They’d missed the playoffs in six of the previous seven seasons and hadn’t won more than nine games since 1983. They were a team that seemed to have lost their identity and desperately needed an infusion of life. Cowher got them to 11 wins and into the playoffs his first year.
Nagy inherited something even worse. The Bears haven’t made the playoffs since 2010, the second-longest drought in franchise history. They hadn’t had more than six wins in a season between 2014 and 2017. Nine games into 2018, the team has already eclipsed their win total of five from the previous year. At 6-3 they lead their division and are playing relevant football in November for the first time in half a decade.
Known for being passionate and a master of motivation and psychology
Cowher was iconic for several reasons but none more so than his coaching style. The man was a fiery ball of emotion on the sideline. He yelled, he fist pumped and he hugged players on the sideline. When he was mad you could see the spit flying from his mouth. What people forget is he knew how to use that emotion to his advantage. He had the ability to recognize what his players were feeling and how to adjust motivations to fit what they needed. His natural feel for psychology was evident.
Nagy is much the same way. He shows that fire and emotion on the sideline, both when things are good and when they’re bad. Either way, it’s clear he has a sense of what his players are feeling. In fact, he even used a Cowher tactic to get the season back on track. After the brutal loss on opening night to Green Bay, Nagy erased it from the team board and declared it’s a 15-game season.
The Bears have gone 6-2 since then. Cowher first unveiled that back in 1995. After going 3-3 to start the year, they erased the first six games and said it was a 10-game season moving forward. They closed out the year 8-2 and went all the way to the Super Bowl. It’s remarkable how much these two are alike. If it holds, the Bears are in for a long period of success.
