Do Wins Create False Sense of Security For Nagy With McCaskey's?

CHICAGO — Bears coach Matt Nagy has always been a live in the moment sort of a guy, which has allowed him, for better or for worse, to avoid dealing with the inevitable.

Nagy’s positivity and glass half-full mentality has kept him from allowing the constant calls for his job, whether they come from Chicago media columnists or the seemingly endless chorus “Fire Nagy” to wear on his nerves, at least positivity. It has allowed him to keep from appearing beaten down and defeated, no matter how loud the noise has gotten.

But if his carpe diem approach to coaching the Bears is as genuine as it seems, Nagy has reason to smile to start 2022 as his team will take an albeit meager two-game winning streak into next weekend’s season finale at Minnesota. The game, which is widely expected to be Nagy’s last as the Bears head coach, does create an interesting scenario if the jury is still out on whether Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace deserve to keep their jobs.

Sunday’s 29-3 dismantling of the god-awful New York Giants at Soldier Field came on the heels of yet another report that Nagy’s days are indeed numbered. The NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that the Bears will begin a search for a new head coach immediately after the season is over – which means that, if the report has merit, that Nagy has exactly one more week on the job before the search for his replacement begins in earnest.

Nagy, being Nagy, insisted Sunday he hasn’t considered the possibilities.

“I take it day-by-day,” Nagy told reporters when asked how he will remember Soldier Field if Sunday’s game was indeed his home finale. “If it goes that way, then it’s meant to be and I just — at the same point in time, I’m so stuck in today’s game and the feeling that I don’t even have time to really — I haven’t thought about that.”

All indications seem to point to the fact that too much damage has been done to prevent Nagy and, likely Pace, from keeping their jobs. But logic doesn’t always seem to carry the day when it comes to the McCaskey family, which has seemingly allowed Nagy to linger in limbo when it comes to his job security during a stretch when the Bears lost seven of eight games before last week’s thrilling comeback against the Seahawks in Seattle.

The NFL Network report Sunday cited sources that Nagy has been himself around Halas Hall and has “been business as usual” and has avoided making his future a topic of conversation. Instead, Nagy has been focused on making sure the Bears finish out the season on as positive of a note as possible.

Well, with back-to-back wins over the hapless Seahawks and Giants, the Bears have gotten to 6-10 and, with a win over the Vikings next week, would get to within a victory of last year’s 8-8 record. The Bears have won back-to-back games without starting quarterback Justin Fields and the Bears’ defense made life miserable for former Bears quarterback Mike Glennon on Sunday. But all things being equal, both games were games the Bears should have won. And did.

But even if the Bears were to finish the year with a three-peat of wins, that shouldn’t be enough to convince the McCaskey’s that things aren’t as bad as they seem. But what happens if it did? While it doesn’t seem likely that a late run of success is enough to stop the inevitable change at the top from taking place, it’s not impossible that the McCaskey’s — in their infinite football wisdom — would look at the past two weeks and consider, again, that Nagy and Pace deserve another chance.

Perhaps they think, maybe, if they don’t make a change and allow Nagy to continue and give him and his staff another crack of trying to win with Fields, things will miraculously fix themselves. Who knows? Maybe they have already made up their minds and have decided that change at the head coach and general manager and even team president roles is needed.

But at this point, nothing should be surprising — not even the McCaskey’s coming back and deciding that after months of allowing Nagy and his positive attitude to flap out in the winter wind, that he’s worth keeping around. Chances are, there is way too much water under the bridge for that to happen even for a likable guy like Nagy who just hasn't won enough to warrant another year on the job.

But given the fact who is calling the shots with this team and the head-scratching decisions that have come from ownership in recent years, no one — not even Matt Nagy — can be entirely positive.