Chicago Bears: Will Matt Nagy’s fatal flaw end the Bears season
Matt Nagy can find redemption by leading the Chicago Bears to victory
In spite of his obvious deficiencies as the Bears offensive mastermind, Matt Nagy has a chance to redeem himself in the playoffs for his many many mistakes as the Bears head coach. The Saints are rightfully favored to win, but the Bears can beat this Saints team.
In this upcoming playoff game, the Bears will have more room for error than they did going against Aaron “the Assassin” Rodgers and his Packers. Drew Brees is still very good but his age is showing. Then you have Rodgers who is having one of the best seasons of his impressive career.
The key to the Chicago Bears winning this game is for Matt Nagy to control his compulsion and back off of the play calling in a big way. Then Bill Lazor can go back to doing what worked for the Bears before Nagy butted in against the Packers. As good as the Saints defense is, they are not impervious to a fired-up offense crisply executing their plays. The Bears are more than capable of doing this even against the Saints.
In order to beat the Saints, the Bears must avoid many of the pitfalls that have sabotaged their offense. Here is one that stands out. They must not keep Trubisky in the pocket two plays in a row if both plays are second and long and then third and long. This will very likely end badly for the Bears against the Saints’ pass rush. This is especially so with Charles Leno protecting Trubisky’s blindside.
Leno’s performance on tape against the Packers last week was quite bad. It was not just Leno who had a rough game last week. Everyone on the offensive line missed more than their share of assignments. As mentioned, they were probably a bit demoralized by the lack of run plays they had become accustomed to in recent games.
It was quite evident in reviewing the film of this Packers game that the excessive dink and dunk play calling literally sucked the aggression out of the Bears. Phil Ottachian in his film review very clearly shows how this short pass dominated performance was an abject failure. This lack of aggression also showed up in the blocking of the Bears’ run plays. This is the worst type of coaching error Matt Nagy could have made but he has done this over and over again.
The question is will he do it again against the Saints who have a much better defense than the Packers. Nagy when in doubt calls for a six-yard curl or a pass at the line of scrimmage. The opposing defense does not have a defensive genius as their coach or a number of great players to stop this cold. The Saints might stuff the dink and dunk pass game in the Bears’ face even more than the Packers did in week 17.