Matt Nagy Sticking to the Plan
If nothing else, Matt Nagy remains consistent.
A day after Justin Fields provided more deep passing in one game than the Bears have had all season and rebounded from a historically bad first start, Nagy started talking again about Andy Dalton's return at quarterback. At least there's no more talk about Nick Foles getting the start like there had been last week.
"Like we said this whole time, when Andy's healthy, he's our starter, he's the 1," Nagy said Monday at Halas Hall. "Justin's the 2. Nick's the 3.
"What's been great about these last couple weeks is Justin's had the opportunity to play and get significant snaps and he's grown from it. Now we just gotta see, where's Andy's health at? Honestly the next two days will be revealing to us."
It's right back to when Dalton is 100% ready to go, he starts. Fields can play until then.
It's obvious Fields earned some credits toward eventually being named starter with his 11-of-17 day for 209 yards, although Nagy wasn't saying it could ever go that far.
"Again, this has been our plan and Justin's grown," Nagy said. "So we've got to see where Andy's at with his health and all that."
Fields completed five passes longer than 20 yards. The Bears went into their 24-14 win over Detroit with exactly one pass longer than 20 yards on the season and that was a pass also completed by Fields.
"I just appreciate that there's a lot of great things that he's done, there's a lot of things that he can learn from," Nagy said. "And Andy's also, it's important to see that Andy's done a good job as well. It's unfortunate when he got hurt and, but you know moving the ball and the different things we were doing.
"But again, it's just, I give credit to both of those quarterbacks because right now they're both doing a great job."
Only one will play when both are healthy and that's Dalton, although the Bears have found ways to use Fields when he didn't start.
The disheartening thing for Bears fans who want to see Fields is the improvement he showed from his debut start to the second game was very significant and suddenly benching him seems like a wasted opportunity. It isn't as if the improvement went unseen, as Fields went from 6 of 20 for 68 yards to 11 of 17 for 209 yards.
"Yeah, he's one of the better ones I've been around with that," Nagy said. "For 22 years old to have that is rare.
"It started with us Monday morning after that game is being able to have discussions on why things went the way they did. Both of us—me as a head coach, him as a quarterback, us as a team—talking through it and saying, 'OK, how do we fix it.' "
Fields after the game called the ability to bounce back something he's always done.
"I've been in tough spots before, and my mindset was just to bounce back from last week, just to get better and keep pushing," Fields said. "I saw Russell Wilson posted a tweet this past week saying, 'I love adversity,' and I truly do love that because it just brings a whole different person out of me.
"And in some ways I'm glad last week happened. I think if we would've won last week, it wouldn’t have pushed us as much to get better and practice hard.”
The hidden aspect to all of this is the play calling and how the quarterback available to start might affect it. After all, Fields is more mobile and Lazor last year with Mitchell Trubisky and now last week has shown he can get production calling plays with a more mobile passer.
Nagy isn't discussing that topic far into the future, but Fields expressed the thought that he prefers hearing plays being called from Lazor.
"He does good," Fields said. "You know, Bill, he’s up in the box, so his voice is always calm. That's the one thing I like.
"Coach (Nagy), it's hard for him to be calm if he has focus on the defense, focus on special teams. His (Lazor's) voice is calm. He's up there in the box seeing the field well and he did a great job calling plays today."
Nagy wasn't even letting out whether he thought Fields at least had shown in the future he could take the job.
"I just think, again what we're focused on is just how he's played these last two games and he grew from he first game to the second game," Nagy said. "And you look at, really this plan that we've talked about this whole time is what we've discussed with everybody. We've discussed it with the quarterbacks, they both know including Nick that they all need to be great in practice and when they get their opportunities in a game.
"That's all they're doing, Justin's been phenomenal with understanding that. I think it's great that he's had an opportunity. Unfortunately with Andy's help that happened. But right no when you look at where he was with Cleveland two weeks ago and where he just came from this past week he's done a really good job."
Just not good enough to start be No. 1 in their eyes.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
