Nine games remain in the 2021 NFL season. If it ended today, most Chicago Bears fans would agree that head coach Matt Nagy would get fired. His team is 3-5 and reeling from a three-game losing streak. It also boasts the worst overall offense in the league and the second-worst scoring offense. To top it off, his prized young quarterback Justin Fields played his best game of the year with the coach nowhere to be found on the sideline.
Unless something drastically changes in the next two and a half months, it is hard to imagine Nagy will return for a fifth season in 2022. George McCaskey endured immense backlash for keeping him after last year. Doing so this time around could risk alienating the fanbase. So if the Bears did make a change, who might they end up pursuing? Albert Breer of The MMQB was asked this question. He provided a list of possible names.
Some weren’t surprises. Others? A little bit.
“But if there were a change? (Doug) Pederson would be an interesting name to consider, if you’re O.K. with pulling from the same tree. Ditto with Nagy’s successor in K.C., Eric Bieniemy. Ohio State coach Ryan Day would be an obvious name to consider (although I definitely don’t want anyone taking him from my alma mater). Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and Panthers OC Joe Brady are creative minds, with experience developing young quarterbacks. And Tampa Bay’s Byron Leftwich and Green Bay’s Nathaniel Hackett are less RPO specific but have earned their way into these conversations.”
A lot of Bears fans probably aren’t wild about the idea of barking up the Andy Reid tree again. Doug Pederson though should be an obvious candidate. There aren’t many coaches with a Super Bowl ring and proven track record as an offensive play caller who is still just 53-years old. Bieniemy has been one of the hotter names around the league ever since Patrick Mahomes began setting records in 2018. However, not being the play caller, an iffy background off the field, and rumors about poor interviews have dampened his stock.
Day coached Fields to great success at Ohio State. So that one is obvious. Moore is arguably the hottest name in the NFL right now thanks to his success in Dallas. Brady guided LSU to a record-breaking year and a national championship in 2019. Then he squeezed a career-best passing season out of Teddy Bridgewater in 2020. Leftwich just won the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay and has a 44-year old Tom Brady playing his best football. Hackett is the right-hand man of Matt Lafleur in Green Bay and is highly respected for his management and people skills.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
Chicago Bears may have a healthy market of options this time
It looks like there is no shortage of viable candidates for them to choose from. Something that hasn’t always been the case in the past. While this is comforting, Bears fans are having trouble feeling optimistic. This is because they know the two men who will be leading the search. McCaskey and team president Ted Phillips. These two have had three cracks at the head coaching position since they became a pairing in 2011. That left the Bears with Marc Trestman, John Fox, and Nagy.
Not exactly a trio that inspires confidence they’ll get it right this time around. This is why many continue to shout that McCaskey has to remove Phillips, a career accountant, from the picture and pair himself with somebody who has a deeper background in football. That feels unlikely to happen. Especially as the Chicago Bears prepare to set their plans of a move to Arlington Heights in motion.
So any head coaching search likely won’t go as expected.
Nobody saw the hirings of Trestman or Nagy coming. The Bears haven’t always operated with a “hire the most qualified candidate” approach in the past decade. It feels instead like they’ve opted for whoever happened to have the best interview. Maybe that changes this time around or maybe the best candidate happens to give the interview they’re looking for. That is all fans can hope for at this point.
