Could Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy be starting to lose the locker room?
The disconnect seems to start with Matt Nagy and Nick Foles
There are more than a few signs that there is a revolt brewing from the Chicago Bears leaders on offense against fearless leader Coach Matt Nagy. If I had to pick one sign that stands out the most it is in the Saints game.
After Nick Foles threw a touchdown pass to Darnell Mooney on the sidelines, Nagy goes up to Foles to celebrate. Nagy puts his hands up for a high five and Foles doesn’t respond. Nagy gives him a tap on the shoulder with his hand. Foles never looked at his head coach and had a sour look on his face as he kept on walking by Nagy. This was quite a diss from the Bears quarterback to his play-calling head coach.
Next, we will flashback to last week’s game against the Panthers. During the telecast, color analyst and former quarterback Brian Griese, says on air, “We were talking to Nick Foles yesterday, he said, ‘You know, sometimes play calls come in and I know that I don’t have time to execute that play call.'” Afterward, Nick Foles clarified what he meant when he said, “Maybe we don’t have the time right now for this type of drop because of the pressure that they’re bringing.”
The truth may lie somewhere in between. Nagy waits too long to call plays and the plays he calls at times are not taking into account the kind of pass rush pressure Nick Foles has been facing. Regardless, the Chicago Bears quarterback has not been shy about muted criticism with how his head coach calls plays and what play calls he makes.
The next big nugget in unraveling the mystery of the relationship between Nagy and Foles revolves around “wristband-gate”. Foles likes using one to list plays and Nagy does not like him using one. Once again Nagy is obsessing over his playlist. It’s almost like a fetish with him. However, I think there is something deeper going on here.
In the third quarter of the Saints game, Nick Foles’ headset went out. In his diligence, the Bears quarterback wanted to make absolutely sure he got the play Nagy wanted. He did his best to do this even if it meant losing a timeout or getting a five-yard penalty for delay of game. Jim Miller on the Fox post-game show was puzzled why Foles didn’t just call a play with the players on the field who fit a play in their playbook. This is a great question but the answer to it could be revealing.
My guess is that Nick Foles knows his head coach does not want him to call a play without Nagy having some kind of approval to run it. This is a reasonable conclusion to make, given that this happened during a treacherous part of another awful third quarter. It is quite possible Foles is feeling disrespected because Nagy has gone full control freak regarding the plays that get run.