As the season spirals out of control for the Chicago Bears at 3-5, the conversations have begun shifting to what will happen when the offseason begins in January. All of those questions center on the two men in charge. Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace. While both fans and media believe it is past time the head coach and GM got their walking papers, nobody can say for sure what team chairman George McCaskey will do.
The best anybody has put together to this point is that Nagy is under the most heat. This is due to the team’s poor record, their league-worst offense, and the early struggles of rookie quarterback Justin Fields. Pace is a somewhat bigger mystery. Ownership still reportedly likes him and there is less certainty he might lose his job despite the onfield product. That could be changing after last Sunday’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers
The Bears’ third straight. All by double digits.
According to Jeff Hughes of Da Bears Blog, who has proven connections inside Halas Hall, it appears the duo blew their last opportunity to save their jobs. A mixture of the roster’s decline, setting unrealistic expectations, and mismanagement of Fields have put Nagy and Pace squarely on the road out of town. Nothing short of an unlikely late-season turnaround can save changes from being made.
“After some Monday morning conversations with several people – both inside Halas Hall and around the league – I came away, for the first time in 2021, believing there was little chance of either Matt Nagy or Ryan Pace returning to the Chicago Bears in 2022. The program, the entire program, seems to have reached its conclusion.”
This can’t be a huge surprise to anybody. Nagy sold people for years that he could fix the Bears’ perennial issues on offense. After a promising start in 2018, things have gotten steadily worse over the past three years. Now the unit is worst in the NFL. As for Pace? A series of poor draft decisions and overaggressive trades have left the Bears with the second-oldest roster in the league. One with a lot of holes that need plugging and not enough resources to plug them with.
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Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace only have themselves to blame
They were handed a golden opportunity this offseason. By all rights, they probably should’ve been fired after the 2020 season. A year that saw the team start 5-1 only to crumble to 8-8 down the stretch. They had a chance to reset the expectations for this team coming into 2021. One where they could reload at quarterback and start the process of structuring the roster around him.
Instead, they doubled down the roster they have, trying to stash Fields while selling Andy Dalton as the guy who could carry this team back to the playoffs. Then Dalton gets hurt in the second game and their entire plan falls apart. The rookie QB has struggled this year in no small part to Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace failing to adequately support him with a competent offensive system or enough surrounding talent.
This failure is theirs.
Just because they lucked into drafting Fields doesn’t mean they deserve the opportunity to build around him. The NFL is still a team game and there are too many other problems with this Bears team to justify keeping them beyond this season. Maybe that narrative changes in the next nine games, but it sure sounds like ownership is preparing for the likelihood both are gone this winter.
