Justin Fields Overblown Smackdown of Nagy

Since I started Halas Hall Kool Aid it seems like I get after Erik Lambert a lot. It is funny, because I usually like his writing, but he almost always has that one phrase or bit of logic that gets me off on a rant. This nice piece about Justin Fields alleged ‘smackdown’ of Matt Nagy is a classic example. Lambert writes:

“Then one question came up. Did he think he was put in the best position to succeed? He repeated the question to himself for a moment and offered a reply that, while short, spoke volumes.

Fields didn’t sugarcoat it. While he did [sic] single out Nagy or anything like that, he didn’t care for whatever the coaches were trying to do last season.”

While reading that seems to pass the sanity check [outside the missing “n’t”], it fails when I watch the video. Fields’ exact quote begins, “Um, ya know, I don’t know, but at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter…”, and it closes with a professionally measured dose of athlete-speak.

That sounds quite sugarcoated to me. Don’t get me wrong, I came to the same conclusion as Lambert did. But that was pretty easy to do, having seen the full, four year body of Nagy’s work, and having heard the “testimony” of #1’s personal QB coach.

But if I were to concoct a “reading between the lines interpretation” of Justin Fields’ answer, I thought he sounded more like, “Lets see…Do I want to throw my old coach under the bus to take the edge off my bad stats last season? Eh, not today, thanks!”

Athletes don’t live in the past. The past is the stomping grounds of fans and journalists, but athletes know it that most moments spent in the past are toxic…even the good parts of the past, if you spend too much time in them, they will poison you. Athletes know that time spent in the past is time not spent in the present, and time spent anyplace other than the present is time that will NOT improve their future. Only time well spent in the present can improve one’s future, and only if one repeats that good spending relentlessly.

Geez…I’m starting to feel like I’m applying for a job as a motivational speaker, or something! My apologies if that made you feel tired, too. I guess my point is, I didn’t need Justin Fields to point out the obvious truth:

Hey, there was NOBODY in Chicago put in a good position to succeed last season (except the opponents)! Not even Pace and Nagy were in a good position to succeed.

Believe me, I blame Matt Nagy for everything, but it would seem stupid for me to say being a lame duck Head Coach in a “must win now” season could possibly be a good HC scenario. No, a good HC scenario was Bruce Arians in 2020: Just finished a season that looked Super Bowl ready except for the loser QB, but Tommy Brady agrees, and he wants to come here… Yeah, that is a fair bit better gig, compared to Nagy’s 2021, Lame Duck Under Glass.

And, of course, Nagy was predictably Nagy, given the obvious desperation associated with his situation. He did what he always does when he is desperate, he overcomplicated things. Probably the only way he knew to have his own way, and still have plenty of people to blame, was the Alan Greenspan method:

Talk until you are blue in the face and always remain so lofty and buzz-wordy and dripping with psycho babble that by the time you stop, no one has the courage to ask a follow up question, because no one is quite sure what you even said, and even those brave enough to fancy that they might know, lack the energy to try to pursue the thought.

One can almost picture Nagy spitting out a plan and asking, “Are we all on the same page?”…and his whole staff looking like deer in the headlights, afraid to ask what page that even IS.

Enough toxins, back to the present! Why should we believe Matt Eberflus will get results? Because he is the anti-Nagy! His approach is the exact opposite of Nagy’s approach! Where Nagy wanted to go all Mad Scientist and win with: “They’ll NEVER see THIS coming!”, Matt Eberflus is going all “Keep It Simple, Stupid”, so that he can keep the focus on execution instead of dazzling opponents with the excellence of being the cleverest coach ever (oops, there’s more of those Nagy toxins).

Now, everybody knows, just having the simplest playbook in the league can’t last. Once opponents know what to expect, familiarity will always become simplicity’s weakness. By most accounts, though, that problem generally takes most of a full season to take effect…simplicity is that effective

So does that mean the best we can hope for is a one-off, single season flash, and then we’re done again? Not if Eberflus and Getsy can do what Nagy and the “concensus” of his “brain trust” offensive coaching staff couldn’t: Make Adjustments!

Right now they don’t have a playbook, and the language they are using is pretty generic. They are “just talking ball” in terms of “we have this, so we want to do a lot of that kind of stuff”, and “we want to avoid that kind of stuff, even if just because none of us really like it.”

Remember just last spring, when Justin Fields was learning to hear plays in his helmet and call them in the huddle. It was a struggle because he had to sound exactly like… somebody… was it Coach Nagy? Mitch Trubisky? Nick Foles? Andy Reid? Be You! Only, just sound like somebody else.

This year, they haven’t even written the language the playbook will be based on, yet. My guess is that it will get nailed down somewhere close to mandatory mini camp. I’m also guessing that Justin Fields initial enunciation and cadence will become the default, which backup QBs may be expected to mimic. (Unless his teammates are spending too much time asking, “Wait! What did you say???”, but, I don’t expect that, and know he could adjust if needed!-)

Once the initial playbook is built, if the new coaching staff are who they say they are, they will add a few wrinkles each and every week, custom tailored to exploit some weakness of the upcoming opponent by highlighting some strength of the Bears. By the end of the first season, the actual “playbook” is still way smaller than Nagy’s ever was, and it is constructed in a way that makes strategic sense in the context of individual football games

It is also a playbook that a guy like Justin Fields owns. Not like he’ll be calling all the shots, but he will be a Sensei, not a Grasshopper. And following the same methods will keep the playbook fresh, adding new wrinkles, game by game, and season by season. Eventually, you end up with wrinkles so old they look new when you bring them back out years later. And the QB just keeps looking better with age.

Now, all of this assumes that the new coaching staff are who they say they are, but for now, we have to settle for “Obviously way different than the last regime.” And of course, they just keep doing what they said they would do, and that helps, too.

So Bear Down and Pass the Halas Hall Kool Aid!