‘The entire body of work.’ As Chicago Bears Chairman George McCaskey reaches a pivotal juncture, is he readying the franchise for major changes?

Chicago Bears coach Matt Nagy earned a reprieve this week. Sort of.

After Nagy navigated through questions about his job status in the days leading up to the Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions, assurances from Bears Chairman George McCaskey that Nagy wasn’t about to be fired helped calm the frenzy. A 16-14 win over the Lions helped too. Temporarily, at least.

Now, as the 4-7 Bears get set to face the 9-2 Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at Soldier Field, Nagy’s job is still very much in question. Chicago sports fans still are breaking out in spontaneous “Fire Nagy!” chants at random sporting events.

But within meetings and practices at Halas Hall, Nagy said he can tell from his players’ body language and emotions that the team is looking ahead. “They understand that was last week,” he said. “And now the next focus is on Arizona. This is a really, really good football team that we’ve got to be completely locked in (on).”

A micro-focus might be what it takes for the Bears to make it through the final six weeks of Nagy’s fourth season. Big questions about the direction of the franchise loom.

Is there any way Nagy can save his job and continue to work with quarterback Justin Fields? Or would Fields benefit from a coaching staff reboot? Is general manager Ryan Pace’s job also in danger? And what do Bears bosses need to consider as they take the next steps to move forward from a few mediocre seasons?

Colleen Kane and Dan Wiederer discuss the issues in this edition of Real Talk.

Colleen Kane: Well, Dan, that was a Thanksgiving week to remember. Before we move on to what’s ahead for Nagy, we have to recap the job-status fiasco of last week because I think many people believe it could have been prevented.

When the Patch.com report that Nagy would be fired after the Thanksgiving game surfaced last Tuesday, it didn’t take long to understand the speculation would spread rapidly. The journalist, Mark Konkol, does not cover the team but has won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting work at the Chicago Sun-Times. And once his scoop surfaced, he was quickly booked on multiple shows on Chicago sports radio.

If McCaskey or team President Ted Phillips had made an effort to quash the report — either themselves or through their staff, either on the record or on background — the whole saga could have ended within an hour, and the Bears would have saved themselves and Nagy a major headache. Instead, the Bears made Nagy address the rumors himself, and McCaskey waited a full day before he addressed confused players about the issue.

I understand the Bears don’t want to have to respond to every little rumor out there. But this wasn’t a rumor. It was a published news report about the immediate future of their head coach. And perhaps having a blanket policy on how to handle such reports isn’t the best approach.

Wiederer: Perhaps. Perhaps indeed. As I tweeted in the hours before the game in Detroit, the Bears had an obvious fire spreading within their building on that Tuesday morning. And not only did no one above Nagy call the fire department, they didn’t even reach for an extinguisher. As a result, the whole thing became a four-day saga that left some players confused and somewhat out of sorts and further stained the reputation of the franchise within many league circles.

I can’t tell you how many phone conversations and text exchanges I’ve had in the last 10 days with people around the league who were asking some variation of these questions: “What in the world were they doing? What were they thinking?”

Which prompts a forward-looking curiosity on how much sincere reflection and productive conversation there was inside the building after this latest embarrassment with ideas for how a similar faceplant can be avoided in the future.

So where does all this leave Nagy with still six — SIX! — games left in another aggravating season?

Kane: Nagy handled the Tuesday news conference after the report and the postgame media session Thursday well. He fielded many questions about his future with an obvious understanding of why they were being asked and how he got there.

For the third straight season, the Bears went on a losing streak of four games or more. Their offense, Nagy’s baby, remains among the worst in the NFL in many categories, with their 296.1 yards per game ranked 30th and their 169.8 passing yards per game ranked last. The offensive ineptitude has spanned multiple quarterbacks, raising concern about whether Fields’ development is in the right hands.

With each unique loss, Nagy’s exit has seemed more likely. And now the obvious question is if he can do anything to save his job, as he did last season with a stretch of encouraging late-season wins.

The Bears final four games — against the Seattle Seahawks, New York Giants and two versus the Minnesota Vikings — are winnable. But the next two against the Cardinals and Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field are tough, especially given a lengthy injury report that this week has included many of the Bears’ best players — Fields, Akiem Hicks, Roquan Smith, Allen Robinson and Cole Kmet, not to mention Khalil Mack, who is out for the season.

Nagy’s leadership has been commended often during his tenure, but you wonder if things could get even uglier than last week.

Wiederer: Listen, as you well know, the “Fire Nagy!” chants that seemed to begin at Soldier Field during the second half of the loss to the Ravens two weeks ago haven’t exactly died down, now seemingly a staple at just about every sporting event played within three hours of here. So yes, you can imagine that chorus will pop up again at some point Sunday — after the Bears’ first three-and-out, after one of the Cardinals’ touchdowns, after some sort of confusion that requires a timeout. Those chants are a byproduct of the cumulative frustration Bears fans have felt for the last three years and an undeniable sign of civic discontent. Bears ownership is no doubt aware of that too. So barring some sort of fairy-tale run to the NFC championship game, it’s hard to imagine the Bears could keep Nagy as coach in 2022 and sell that plan to their fan base with any sort of confidence or conviction.

Nagy’s future sure seems to be a fait accompli. The next natural question is how the Bears will update their evaluation of Pace as general manager. As McCaskey said during that infamous postseason news conference on Zoom in January, “We take the approach that the person’s entire body of work is considered to decide whether the employment relationship should continue.”

So after seven seasons, where does that leave Pace?

Kane: Barring an unexpected late-season surge by this Bears team, Pace’s teams have had one winning season with only two playoff appearances.

He has hired two head coaches, taken swings at quarterbacks Mike Glennon, Mitch Trubisky, Nick Foles, Andy Dalton and now Fields and made miscalculations on some of his biggest draft picks — including Trubisky, Kevin White, Leonard Floyd, Adam Shaheen and Anthony Miller. But Pace also has made some huge moves, particularly on defense, including trading for Mack, signing Hicks and drafting Smith.

Seven seasons is a long time in the NFL world to get it right. So at what point do McCaskey and Phillips draw the line? Certainly, if Fields pans out how the Bears hope, Pace’s trade-up to get him could be a key moment in Bears history. But is that hope enough to keep the Bears on their current track? Pace also made decisions this offseason that, along with injuries and underperformance, resulted in issues at offensive tackle and cornerback and with the depth at wide receiver.

Given Pace’s “entire body of work,” it’s hard for me to see the Bears not making any changes among Pace and his staff. So what options does McCaskey have?

Wiederer: Let’s be honest, there has only been one season over these last seven that folks outside of Halas Hall would classify as successful or enjoyable. That was 2018. But within the entire body of work, that magical division championship run qualifies as an outlier. To this point, Pace’s Bears teams have a regular-season record of 46-61 and have yet to advance in the postseason, even after multiple significant reboots.

With all that was mentioned above about Nagy’s failures and shortcomings, he was Pace’s hand-selected coach in 2018 — just as Trubisky was the hand-selected quarterback in 2017 in what was an all-in move that wound up bombing.

Bears brass sold everyone last winter on the idea that Nagy and Pace together — in close collaboration and with a shared vision — would get this whole thing back on track. Through that lens, it seems difficult to then take the results from 2021 and pin them exclusively on one of those leaders without also attaching them to the other. Am I wrong?

Six games remain this season, and perhaps McCaskey will want to continue updating his performance evaluations of both men as things evolve. But it’s clear he’s facing some heavy decisions with significant ramifications. And the Bears also have to make certain they close the books on the 2021 season with a crystal-clear vision for what’s next for Fields.

Kane: So while Nagy has to be feeling the pressure over this final stretch of games, the real pressure, whether he perceives it or not, is on McCaskey then. To make the right decisions when it comes to Pace, Nagy and possibly even Phillips. To make sure the right group of leaders is around Fields to aid his development. To pull the Bears out of their irrelevance.

And kind of like last week, all of Bears nation is waiting to see how McCaskey handles it.

Will you be fielding more texts asking, “What in the world were they doing?”

Wiederer: Whatever happens next, I can promise our phones are going to be blowing up for the next month-plus. The Bears have reached another critical juncture to make major decisions that will affect the direction of the organization for the next five to 10 years. As you mentioned, McCaskey has the heaviest responsibility on that front and must be ultra-thorough and calculated with every move he makes or doesn’t make.

The rest of the league will be watching closely. The outside world remains fascinated by what’s happening in Chicago and what might develop next. But almost no one is more interested and invested than Chicagoans. The Bears were confident a year ago that a resistance to outside demands for change was the right approach. Eleven months later, those same demands are back and as loud as ever.

It’s McCaskey’s move now. Once again.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3xOE6W2