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Weighing Futures of Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy
It's often said Chicago is a tough place to coach.
The fans are demanding, excessive media exposure creates pressure and owners can be impatient.
The truth is owners are impatient these days in all sports, fans have always been demanding everywhere and all media creates pressure, especially in larger markets.
For this reason and the fact their approaching the need for contract extensions, Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace enter their fourth year together, the seventh season of Pace's tenure as GM, facing what looks like a pivotal year.
Then again, should it be a pivotal year?
When Pace has shown he has the connections within the NFL to make a late deal to move up 11 places in order to steal quarterback Justin Fields at a fair price, does it buy him extra time?
The futures of Pace and Nagy are difficult to analyze because of mixed signals from their bosses and because of mixed production.
In Nagy's case, the recent history of NFL coaching does nothing to clear matters up, but does seem to argue his case.
Remember the postseason press conference and the good-cop, bad-cop routine? Bears CEO Ted Phillips was the tough guy, board chairman George McCaskey the good cop.
"Making the playoffs is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough," Phillips said. "We need to win in the playoffs and we need to compete for and win a championship. We know we need to get better."
But McCaskey followed by backing off this tough talk: "As far as what we need to see, we need to see progress. It's not a certain number of wins. We don't know what's going to happen in the 2021 season. We just had an unprecedented event during the 2020 season. So we don't know what injuries are going to occur, what other challenges are going to arise, but we've got to see progress."
That's about as vague as it gets, which is just as well because all the arguments both ways lead to uncertainty.
Buying Time for Ryan Pace
Pace found the franchise a quarterback he thinks can be the winner they need but he thought this about Mitchell Trubisky, as well.
He made the famed trade for Khalil Mack, signed successful free agents like Danny Trevathan, Akiem Hicks and Allen Robinson and had his share of both draft day successes and draft day failures. For every Kevin White and Trubisky, there is a Roquan Smith, Eddie Jackson, Darnell Mooney and David Montgomery.
Trading up for Trubisky was one of the all-time NFL disasters but it's possible trading up to get Fields will make the franchise. No one knows this, and one season with a rookie quarterback who might not play much is unlikely to satisfy many skeptics about the need to retain Pace based on the quarterback.
Bears ownership already may have tossed the lifeline to Pace with one word: collaboration.
This was the buzzword for their postseason press conference. Phillips and McCaskey used it to describe the work being done in personnel by Pace since he had Nagy on board to work with beginning in 2018. They've seen a better quality of personnel brought in the draft since then. It's not necessarily the same in free agency but the salary cap has had something to do with this. The 2020 Bears debut of Robert Quinn weighs heavily against Pace.
WHERE DOES MATT NAGY RANK IN SI'S POWER RATINGS FOR COACHES?
However, in Pace's case it all depends on how much the Bears value this collaboration and how much credit they give him for the second quarterback he has selected.
With Nagy, it could all be tied to what he does on the field. The pivoting point could be whether they can simply avoid a total disaster, the kind when teams wind up picking very early on Day 1 of the draft.
If they do this and then move forward with their new quarterback in place, it would be easy to see how ownership interprets this as progress.
Matt Nagy's Promise and Failure
Bears coaches after 3 seasons
George Halas | 28-5-3 | .819 |
Luke Johnsos | 20-4-2 | .808 |
Ralph Jones | 24-10-7 | .671 |
Lovie Smith | 29-19 | .604 |
Matt Nagy | 28-20 | .583 |
Dave Wannstedt | 25-23 | .521 |
Mike Ditka | 21-20 | .512 |
Dick Jauron | 24-24 | .500 |
Neill Armstrong | 24-24 | .500 |
Jack Pardee | 20-22 | .476 |
Jim Dooley | 14-28 | .333 |
John Fox | 14-34 | .292 |
Abe Gibron | 11-30-1 | .274 |
While there are obvious past failures dragging down Pace despite some successes, Nagy's failures are a bit less obvious.
Coaches are hired to win games and if ownership went bottom line then they would need their heads examined to fire Nagy.
There have been 33 head coaches hired in the NFL over the last five years and 15 have been fired. Some have been fired twice. Only four of the 33 have never experienced a losing season. Matt Nagy is one of them, and he has a 28-20 record.
In some respects, he's imitating the timeline of mentor Andy Reid. It took Reid 21 years as a head coach to win a Super Bowl, even though he managed to avoid losing seasons in 17 of the years before he won it all. Nagy hasn't had winning records on a level with Reid's early years, but he has avoided any losing regular seasons.
The other coaches besides Nagy who have been hired the last five seasons without a losing record are Mike Vrabel (29-19), Matt LaFleur (26-6) and Kevin Stefanski (11-5).
Mike Mularkey never had a losing season as the official Tennessee head coach, but he took over the Titans as an interim and had a 2-7 record then so his overall record was 20-21. He was canned after consecutive 9-7 finishes and one playoff victory.
The difference between Nagy and the other three coaches who never had a losing season is they all achieved at least one playoff victory. This is the only real argument that can be made in favor of firing Nagy regarding wins and losses. Apparently it matters somewhat or Phillips wouldn't have been talking about it in January.
In Nagy's case, there is one other matter counteracting his bottom line.
In his case, it hasn't exactly been promises made and promises kept.
The Bears have floundered for years on offense and they brought him to Chicago as a savior for the offense. He also came with a reputation for being able to develop quarterbacks. This seemed a bit presumptuous because Patrick Mahomes hadn't yet established he would be in the running for MVP every year. Still, this is what was said.
Nagy hasn't developed a Bears quarterback to date because Trubisky failed, but everyone is interested to see what Nagy can do with Fields, a quarterback he actually wanted. How he handles Fields even in Year 1 will matter. Laying all the blame on Trubisky doesn't seem fair because the offense actually looked worse when Nick Foles operated it last year.
As for the offense, it's gone straight backward after a first season when they were ninth in scoring, 11th in rushing, 14th in passing touchdowns and 14th in net yards per pass attempt. They've been 29th and 26th in scoring, 27th and 25th in rushing, 25th and 18th in passing TDs and in yards per pass attempt they've been last (32nd) and 26th. This is total regression.
On the other hand, the overall work and winning count most.
San Franciso's Kyle Shanahan is often feted by national media and placed on a pedestal. But he has had three miserable seasons of 6-10 or worse and one Super Bowl season when they lost to the Chiefs.
Meanwhile, Nagy gets heat nationally and also locally. Something doesn't seem right about this picture when he has a 28-20 record but Shanahan is labeled a genius and is 29-35 in his four years with only one winning season.
Bottom Line
It would seem likely ownership would be willing to go with contract extensions if there is enough positive to seize upon in terms of record or offensive improvement.
Making the playoffs and winning would lock it all up quickly.
With Fields in the fold and much of the blame for offensive failure already being focused on Trubisky's inability to read defenses, it seems the new quarterback can give Nagy time to show he can still accomplish what the goal of elevating the long-dormant Bears offense.
Since Pace brought in Fields, he'd go along for the ride.
If a complete disaster of a season occurs and Nagy no longer can say he has avoided losing records, if Andy Dalton struggles so much early that it leaves the Bears buried, then all bets would be off.
Ownership would have to decide whether Nagy deserves a chance to develop the quarterback he and Pace collaborated to find.
Since it took collaboration for Pace's improvement, if it came down to firing Nagy then it's difficult to see why they'd ever be willing then to retain Pace alone.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
