Chicago Bears: Deciphering Matt Nagy’s interview about the quarterbacks

The Chicago Bears opened up their mandatory minicamp yesterday. Only one significant player did not attend — Eddie Goldman. In his post-practice interview, Matt Nagy was asked about that situation and seems to believe Goldman should be back for training camp in July. At least that is the hope. However, that is not what got the media and fans into a tizzy.

Instead, as always, everyone is more concerned about the quarterback position. Matt Nagy set social media on fire with his Cris Collinsworth interview.

The Chicago Bears are going to have plenty of questions about Justin Fields

During the interview, Collinsworth asked Matt Nagy if there is a possible scenario where Justin Fields plays on opening night. Matt Nagy responded with a resounding “no, Andy is our starter.” However, he then backpedals from that saying he can’t predict anything. Here is some of the quote.

"“No, I mean Andy is our starter. Again, I can’t predict anything. You know how it goes. There’s so many things that can happen in between today and Week 1, but Andy is our starter and Justin is our No. 2, and we’re going to stick to this plan.”"

At first glance, it is fairly obvious that Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace brought Andy Dalton in to be the Chicago Bears starting quarterback in 2021. However, at the same time, they had no idea that Justin Fields (or a different quarterback) was going to be drafted in April. Things worked out well for the Bears though and Fields is here for hopefully a very, very long time.

This is not the full quote, and there is more to it that we will get into in a minute, but we should point out that it is only June 16 and too often we (the fans and media) get caught up in what is said by coaches. To this day, I will never forget seeing Ameer Abdullah go first-overall in my redraft fantasy football league because of a performance he had in the preseason followed by some encouraging comments by the coaching staff.

This is the time of year that coaches are all about misdirection, and the Chicago Bears like to believe they are one of the best at it — they aren’t. This is why media members are only allowed to divulge certain information and are limited to how much practice time they are allowed to watch. It’s a little ridiculous, but it is the world we live in.