The Chicago Bears barely escaped with a victory against the winless Detroit Lions and, despite reports to the contrary, Matt Nagy is still the head coach.
A win is a win, no matter how ugly it is and who it comes against. The Chicago Bears desperately needed a win on Thanksgiving Day against the Detroit Lions and they got it, 16-14. It wasn’t a pretty game, but the results are. Their five-game losing streak is now behind them. Despite recent reports that the Bears’ ownership would fire head coach Matt Nagy no matter the result, he still remains in his position, for now, at least.
The Bears and Lions started out the lineup of Thanksgiving Day games. Everyone expected a less-than-stellar game, and they got exactly what they expected. The Bears’ offense actually moved the ball, amassing 378 yards. Andy Dalton, who started in place of the injured Justin Fields, threw for 317 yards and a touchdown. The defense only gave up 239 total yards. The unit, which struggled against the run throughout the season, only gave up 76 yards on the ground.
Despite the positives, the Bears still had to squeak by the winless Lions. They had to depend on Detroit’s own miscues to come away with the victory. The offense still had trouble getting into the end zone. They got only one touchdown and three Cairo Santos field goals. Dalton also threw an interception in the end zone.
The defense, while doing a good job overall, looked shaky late in the third quarter. The offense actually bailed it out late in the game. After three straight games of collapsing late in the game, Dalton and company decided to just not let the defense do it again. The Bears got the ball with 8:30 left in the game, down 14-13, and held it for exactly that time. Santos hit a 28-yard field goal as time expired to give the Bears the victory.
Nagy is still the head coach…for now
Earlier this week, the Chicago Bears were rocked with two bombshell reports. The first one claimed that the majority of Bears players want Nagy fired. Losing the locker room is certainly a quick way to get yourself fired.
As if that wasn’t enough, another report came out saying that the McCaskey family had enough and that, regardless of the outcome of the game against the Lions, they’d fire Nagy. After staying silent when that report came out, team CEO George McCaskey told the players and several sources that the report was a lie.
After the game, Nagy spoke about how good he felt that the players blocked out the noise well and got the win.
I thought the guys handled this whole week really well. What I care about are these players and coaches. When it comes to distractions, it’s how you handle them, and we got the win. I can’t tell you how much this win means to me because of how much the players and coaches sacrificed.
It was good to see the Bears get a close, hard-fought victory. The fact that it came against a winless Detroit team speaks volumes on where the team is with Nagy as the head coach. The McCaskeys might have planned to fire him immediately and then changed their minds. We’ll never know what the real plan was.
All the McCaskeys are doing now is delaying the inevitable. When Fields is ready to play again (he should be ready for next week against the Arizona Cardinals) Nagy will continue to have a horrible game plan. This offense is tailored for someone like Dalton and the Bears still scored only 16 points. Their average coming into the game was 16.2 points per game.
If the McCaskeys want to look at, say, offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, or special teams coach Bill Tabor (who filled in when Nagy tested positive for COVID), as a replacement, they could hire one of them as interim head coach. They’ll then see how they perform. They can’t possibly be worse than Nagy at this point, right?
It is time for the McCaskeys to pull the trigger and fire Matt Nagy. If not, we’ll see a lot more embarrassing games. The jokes will then continue to circulate.
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