Probably as important as a coach's technical know-how and strategizing is his ability to command the respect of the lockeroom. If this article is accurate, then it appears we have our best leader of men coach since Lovie. This is a positive thing but still need to see if Nagy is a savvy offensive mind. Also, this article basically confirms that lockeroom would have imploded because of the play of the offense and (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky. Half the team came to work everyday and did their job - that's a recipe for disaster in the locker room but Nagy navigated those stormy seas.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... DcQy1B3-kW[quote]Bears left tackle Charles Leno Jr. went through the twists and turns of his career, and in doing so, provided perspective.
“Third head coach.”
“Second GM.”
“Fourth O-line coach.”
“Fourth coordinator.”
It’s been quite the run — an impressive one at that — for a seventh-round pick from Boise State. He was drafted by Phil Emery and Marc Trestman in 2014 and became a Pro Bowl alternate for Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy in 2018.
“It feels different,” Leno said. “It definitely feels different from when I first got into the league. Clearly, I was a rookie, so I’m just kind of figuring things out and I kind of had my eyes with blinders on. I really wasn’t aware of a lot of stuff. But I know for sure the feeling in the locker room and the feeling throughout the building is just much different now.”
As the Bears work through everything that went wrong over the course of their 2019 season, Pace, the organization’s third general manager in the previous decade, can take consolation in knowing that Nagy’s ship didn’t sink.
President/CEO Ted Phillips and chairman George McCaskey should see the same steadiness. What transpired in Nagy’s second season — while still disappointing — is significantly different than what led to the demise of Emery and Trestman.
The Bears’ culture remains strong. It’s where their hope for a turnaround resides. As Leno said, it’s “way more positive” than before. Throughout the season, several players referred to it as the closest team they’ve ever been on.
“I don’t sense anything going on or fractures or cracks or anything like that within the character of the team,” said punter Pat O’Donnell, who was part of the Bears’ 2014 draft class with Leno.
How Nagy kept those fractures and cracks from forming in his locker room is one reason why the Bears brass believes in what he has built over two years working alongside Pace.
In a conversation with The Athletic, Nagy pulled back the curtain on the Bears’ culture. What it becomes in 2020 partly depends on what happens at quarterback, but the players in that locker room say what’s been built shouldn’t be overlooked or ignored. It matters to them.
“It’s something that we openly talk about because it happens all across the league,” defensive lineman Akiem Hicks said. “There is a certain point in the league when the records are starting to get set, guys start dividing, guys start seeing different things, people start to get selfish. As a team and as our culture is here, we don’t operate that way.”
The players’ committee
Every week — usually at 8 a.m. on Wednesday — Nagy gathered with a group of players in a conference room on the second floor of Halas Hall. It was a blend of players from all three phases, different draft classes and various experience levels.
Leno, O’Donnell and cornerback Kyle Fuller, members of Emery’s last draft class in 2014, were joined by quarterback Mitch (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky, running back Tarik Cohen and safety Eddie Jackson, who were all drafted by Pace in 2017.
Outside linebacker Khalil Mack, defensive lineman Akiem Hicks, receiver Allen Robinson, tight end Trey Burton and cornerback Prince Amukamara also were included. So was special-teams ace Sherrick McManis, the only player on the roster to play for former coach Lovie Smith.
This was Nagy’s players’ committee.
It’s not a novel concept. Nagy took it from Andy Reid and John Fox did this as well, but in Nagy’s opinion, this group was instrumental in sustaining a positive environment throughout their turbulent season.
“That’s the part that I took and was really impressed with our guys in regards to how they held themselves accountable and took it upon themselves, especially during that four-game stretch, to accept constructive criticism and to accept accountability and not point fingers,” Nagy said. “It starts with those guys.”
Some meetings were only a few minutes, but others went longer. Travel logistics and practice changes were discussed, but Nagy also wanted conversation.
“He definitely wants feedback from the players,” Robinson said. “I think he feels very comfortable with the group that we have leading the team as far as guys not being complacent and things like that. I don’t think we’ve ever had that here. I think that he feels that he understands the kind of resiliency that we have in this locker room.”
Nagy’s weekly messages started here. Those players heard them first.
“I want them to be able to either agree with it or disagree with it,” Nagy said. “Most of the time, which is in agreeance, they help me spread that message throughout the week.”
One of the Bears’ points of emphasis this season was the idea that leaders create leaders. Nagy got it from the book, “Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life,” which chronicled the success of New Zealand’s legendary rugby team.
“That’s where I think our guys excelled this year,” Nagy said. “Those player committee meetings really helped us out in regards to those guys holding the guys that aren’t in that meeting accountable.”
It worked both ways, too.
“I think they saw that I was very receptive and we were accountable as a coaching staff,” Nagy said. “The second that players see that you hold yourself accountable — and there is humility — they respect that. Then it’s just a matter of doing it. That’s where it really helped us this year.”
Power of visualization
While the Bears were stuck in what became a four-game losing streak, Nagy watched the Washington Nationals win the World Series. The sports fan in him loved it. In May, the Nationals lost five straight and fell to 19-31 — and now they were world champions.
Matt Nagy enjoys drawing on other sports to inspire his players. (Jon Durr / USA Today)
It was time to build another presentation to show the team in the Mugs Auditorium. Nagy is computer literate, but he got some help from the Bears’ video department and assistant Kyle Childress.
“If I see something that can relate to our culture, I use it,” Nagy said. “A lot of times it happens to be that during that period of time, like with the Washington Nationals. How do you not use that in our situation? (It’s) a team that was struggling, a team that wasn’t doing all that well, but a team that ended up making it to the end because they persevered. They stuck together and they didn’t point fingers. It’s just too perfect.”
The Bears’ losing streak hit four games in Philadelphia on Nov. 3, dropping them to 3-5. But after that, the Bears won four of their next five games. They were 7-6 and back in the playoff hunt.
There was a renewed belief. It started with the players, but the presentations helped.
“It mentally put us in a place to think a little bit, to think about our craft, to put ourselves mentally in that situation,” Robinson said. “To create some visualization of what may come and may happen.”
The messages stick with the players, whether Nagy draws on the Nationals or the Virginia men’s basketball team’s dramatic national championship.
“Those are motivational moments to really get you to feel what opportunity you have before you,” Hicks said.
For Fuller, an avid golfer, it was revisiting the comeback of Tiger Woods, who won the 2019 Masters. And for Leno, it was seeing and hearing about the success of the Golden State Warriors as the Bears went 12-4 last season.
“(It’s) how they didn’t flinch when they went down in a game,” Leno said.
Robinson said the presentations are full of meaningful messages, especially for younger players. Second-year linebacker Josh Woods called them “extremely inspirational.”
“You always hear it, like it’s always possible,” Woods said. “To see people do it in real life and in all different factions of life, you got golf, you got basketball, baseball, shoot even football, you got teams from two years ago, where nobody was counting them in, and now they’re top-tier teams. It’s just constant reminders to keep hacking at it. Just keep chopping at the wood, eventually that tree is going to fall.”
‘Be you’ — all the time
When Bears linebacker coach Mark DeLeone thinks of Nagy’s season, he sees what Reid did in 2015. DeLeone and Nagy were on Reid’s coaching staff that season when the Chiefs overcame a 1-5 start by winning 11 consecutive games, including a 30-0 victory against the Texans in the wild-card round.
“The way he handled that was a great learning experience for everybody that was there,” DeLeone said. “And it was, ‘You be the same guy every single day. Don’t change. Just because things aren’t going your way, stay the course.’”
DeLeone saw in Nagy the same guy that he first met at the Residence Inn in Kansas City when they were first hired in 2013.
“I met him and (his wife) Stacey,” DeLeone said. “He had already been there for a few days and I had just pulled into town and they were about to look at houses. And from that moment I met him, we became friends and he is the exact same guy today as he was then. He hasn’t changed. He’s one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met in my life.
“And I think when you’re coaching players, players can see through a lot of things. When you’re a genuine person and you’re genuine with them and you’re honest with players, they want to play for you.”
It wasn’t always that way at Halas Hall. Fox’s relationship with Vic Fangio deteriorated over their final two seasons together. The players noticed.
Before that, Marc Trestman insulated himself in an effort to fix his offense, while leaving accountability to his assistants. Players saw that, too.
It didn’t happen to the 2019 Bears.
“It rubs off on the team because players 100 percent notice when you lose and then coaches start to get anal,” Woods said. “It makes players nervous.”
To defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano, Nagy’s consistency was palpable.
“That’s all those guys want to know,” Pagano said. “Am I getting the same guy? Or is he going to be ‘Mr. This’ when we win and then this Jekyll and Hyde type deal when we lose? His consistency, his positive attitude, he’s always upbeat. He always sees this thing glass half-full and that’s what he’s instilled in all these players, the locker room, the coaches. And it just trickles down.”
It particularly helps with messages. The ripple effect can’t happen without it.
“Consistency from any leaders makes everybody’s jobs easier,” said safeties coach Sean Desai, who was first hired by Trestman and Emery. “So as an assistant, I know what to expect, and with coach Nagy, you know what you’re going to get every day. He’s the same guy every day. And that helps because it helps you do your job better. You know what you’re pulling for, what you’re fighting for. Your message is the exact same one that coach is giving because you believe in it and you’ve seen it and it works. To have that consistency and that unwavering commitment that he does, it just gives the assistants more confidence and the players.”
Throughout the Bears’ turbulent season, Nagy received text messages from Reid and other head coaches and assistants. The message was often the same: “Don’t change.” When those messages didn’t click, Nagy had his wife, Stacey, his high school sweetheart.
“My wife, she’s a stud,” Nagy said. “She’s very, very honest with me if she sees something, whether it’s on or off the field. She can tell that I’m down or if I’m upset or if I’m just not being myself, she’ll pull me right back into it. That’s important.”
Staying the same meant staying on course regardless of the rough waters his ship drifted in.
“I just always try to go back to that because I don’t want to be that guy that did try to change because things weren’t going the right way,” Nagy said. “When I say that, that’s the ‘me’ part, the person. The coach, there are some things that you can do different. That’s different. You’re always adapting and trying to see what solutions you could come up with.
“But the person part, that’s the part to me is the biggest thing in this ‘Be you’ and don’t ever change, is that there is a lot of egos and it’s very easy to get a big ego and very easy to change in this profession — and that’ll never happen with me. Never as long as I’m here in this league, that will never happen.”
A focus on family
In the typical workweek for a Sunday game, Mondays can be grueling, especially for assistant coaches. Defensive line coach Jay Rodgers called it a “grind day.”
“You’re doing post-game evaluations,” Rodgers said. “You’re getting ready for the next deal. You just had a game the previous day. And then you get to see the family.”
And for an hour, everything is different.
Starting last season, Nagy has carved out time on Monday nights for the families of the Bears’ coaching staff. From 5 to 6 p.m., children can run around the Bears’ new practice fields and up and down the new conditioning hill. The Walter Payton Center is open and pizza and wings are served for dinner.
Matt Nagy and wide receivers coach Mike Furrey (right) played together in the Arena Football League. (Ron Chenoy / USA Today)
“As a father, when you see your kids, there’s nothing like it, especially at a different time of the day rather than on a Friday or a Saturday,” Rodgers said. “You’re talking about Monday for us.”
For young coaches with young children, it turned into valuable time that wasn’t previously there. Rodgers, Desai, quarterbacks coach Dave Ragone and receivers coach Mike Furrey all appreciated it.
“The kids climb all over the pads,” said Rodgers, who has three children. “They hop on the agile bags. My son will bring his glove and a baseball and we’ll play catch. We’ll play a little football. They’ll tackle each other. The girls will run around doing cartwheels and gymnastics. You name it.”
The Bears didn’t do anything like that under Fox or Trestman.
“It puts things into perspective for us,” said Ragone, who has three children. “This is important and you’ve got your family, obviously. The fact that you’re able to share a dinner with them and you can be around them and you can see your kids and ask how school went, it kind of refocuses you a little bit, energizes you. You’re like ‘All right, I saw my kids. I saw my wife.’ And now you come back in and put whatever hours are left in the day into my work.”
“It gets me fired up,” Rodgers said. “It’s a good jolt of excitement.”
Nagy, of course, knows what they’re all feeling. He and Stacey have four boys of their own.
“To me, the family aspect part of it, that ties again to the culture,” Nagy said. “I want our culture to feel like family. I want our guys, meaning our players, I want them to feel like they’re dealing with family every day they come to work. That’s what it’s all about.
“It’s the same thing with our coaches. I do feel like in this business in the NFL, I feel like coaches get neglected a lot. What I mean by that is the family things, the way that coaches don’t take care of their bodies at times, whether that means bringing in massage therapists to take care of the coaches as much as the players because more mentally than anything, coaches need to be mentally strong throughout the season. It’s a long season and you’re away from your family a lot.”
The feedback Nagy got from his own sons reinforced the value of the family night. His sons couldn’t make all of them because of their own practices, but they looked forward to it when they could. They loved it being a part of what their dad does daily.
For Furrey, who played with Nagy in the Arena Football League, the day turned sentimental.
“Nags and I can sit up in the building out there up top and look out the window and all of a sudden you’ve got Nagy throwing to Furrey or Furrey throwing to Nagy,” Furrey said with a wide smile. “It’s kind of weird because Matt and I did that.”
The QB-coach relationship
Ragone, the Bears’ quarterbacks coach since 2016, has told Nagy and (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky that he’s jealous of the relationship they’ve formed in their two years together.
“It’s more than just about the player,” he said. “It’s the person. And vice versa. If you’re the quarterback, you know how much the coach is trying to help you and cares about you. That relationship, to me, is so vitally important.”
Nagy’s pairing with (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky was tested this year as they both came under fire for the Bears’ offensive woes. So in an effort to ignite the offense and improve (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky’s play, they spent more time together.
“I think that he just understands that I understand the position and I know that he knows it,” Nagy said. “It’s just about building that relationship of trust and him being able to tell me how he feels and not tell me something he thinks I want to hear.
“That’s what’s really great about our relationship is that he understands that I’ll listen to everything he has to say, but then he’ll also listen to stuff that I might have. And there is no hard feelings through it all. It’s all task-related criticism.”
Matt Nagy wasn’t afraid to publicly criticize Mitch (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky in 2019, even on the sidelines. (Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images)
If it’s not working or being worked on, players will notice. The head coach/quarterback relationship is that important. It’s part of any team’s culture.
In 2014, Trestman’s pairing with Jay Cutler deteriorated into a late-season benching. It came after Aaron Kromer, the Bears’ former offensive coordinator, openly criticized Cutler to a national reporter after a loss.
“It’s just by holding everybody accountable,” Robinson said. “That’s the biggest thing. I think whenever you have an issue, as far as on either side of the ball or within any game, it’s not just one person. Very seldomly it is. More so, it’s a collective unit. I think (Nagy) being more solution-based has trickled down to all of us.”
Dancing days here again
When the Bears ended their four-game losing streak, many questioned whether re-opening “Club Dub” would be the right thing to do. After all, the Bears were a losing team. Why should they celebrate?
Nagy never thought twice about it. The lights would be turned off, the disco ball turned on and his team would dance.
“That’s our thing,” said Woods, one of the Bears’ most active dancers. “Coach says it after every win. Whether it’s by one point or 100 points, they all count the same, and you’ve got to enjoy them because it’s hard to do in this league.
“People saying we shouldn’t have ‘Club Dub,’ because we’re whatever, shut up. You know what I mean? It’s hard to win this league and we’re going to enjoy every single one of them.”
That comes directly from Nagy, who borrowed the idea from former Cubs manager Joe Maddon. This year, his team understood more than ever how difficult it is to win in the NFL.
In this regard, Nagy never changed. He didn’t stop holding the Saturday dance-offs between players, which started last year. Instead, Nagy expanded them to include other departments.
“I think when you go to practice and you’re happy and you’re excited about pulling your car into the parking lot and you’re going to spend eight to 10 hours there at the building, I want guys that want to be a part of that,” Nagy said. “I want guys to spread the word, ‘Hey, man, you don’t understand, man, the way we practice and things that we do when we’re not at practice, the way we bond, the way we work together when things aren’t good, it’s powerful.’”
It’s never going to be perfect. Social media can be a divisive force — during the Bears’ four-game losing streak, some of the frustration of the Bears’ receivers showed up in liked and deleted messages on Twitter.
And then it ended. The accountability was too widespread. The players’ committee did its job. So did Nagy.
“The less that you could stay on that and see that, the better,” Nagy said. “And that’s just a constant message from us. (It’s), ‘Hey, let’s worry about what we know we can handle and what we can worry about.’ And that’s just coming to work every day and working hard.”
Something to build upon
In his end-of-season press conference, Pace used the phrase “extreme confidence” in describing his faith in Nagy.
“For me this season, when you go through adversity for players and staff, it reveals a lot of things,” Pace said. “And this season gives me even more confidence and conviction in him as our head coach for what we went through and how he handled it.”
It was a reference to the Bears’ culture by a GM who was determined to change it after he was hired in 2015.
The Trestman era had its notable dysfunction, from a veteran linebacker who corrected his new position coach in post-practice work, to a receiver who yelled at his kicker and fought with an assistant coach, to all the dirty laundry aired out in the media.
Some of that dysfunction carried over into the Fox era, from lockdown-the-building-worthy threats made by a defensive lineman, to an offensive coordinator who couldn’t stand his tight end, to a loud spat between receivers who barely even played.
The vibe is different now.
“We have a team where I can talk to anybody about anything at any time and it will be perceived in a way that is beneficial for the team,” Hicks said.
An experienced head coach himself, Chuck Pagano believes in what Matt Nagy’s built in Chicago. (Matt Marton / USA Today)
The Bears’ cultural changes came with personnel changes. This season wasn’t without its issues; they were just handled differently. When linebacker Roquan Smith didn’t play because of personal issues, he wasn’t questioned, but cared for and protected by staff and teammates.
“It speaks volumes to the guys that are in the locker room,” O’Donnell said. “That’s what they want. They want guys who are going to stick together in tough times and they want guys to stick together in good times. That’s what it’s all about. I just think that the guys in this locker room are going to hold everything together. It sucks and it’s unfortunate that we’re out of the playoffs and things like that, but we can’t fold now.”
If the Bears’ culture was formed in 2018, in 2019 it evolved.
“When you have a solid core group, it helps weather any storm,” Robinson said. “It’s finding a way to move through that storm. That’s something that we did. Granted, it put us in a tough situation. We kind of dug a little bit of a hole. But at a time when we were 4-6, there are many different ways that that season could go. You see some teams go from 4-6 to 5-11. You see a lot of that. But we found ourselves here halfway through November playing meaningful football. I think that’s a true testament to everybody in that group.”
Nagy’s coaching staff will be different after offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, offensive line coach Harry Hiestand, tight ends coach Kevin Gilbride and special-teams assistant Brock Olivo were dismissed.
But those who remain know what to expect from Nagy. It includes Pagano, who ran the Colts for six seasons and dealt with his share of franchise-hindering problems.
“I think culture eats strategy and (Nagy) does as good a job as anybody with that,” Pagano said before the season concluded. “There’s no way if your culture isn’t right. What he’s built from Day 1 since he’s been here, if it ain’t the way it is, then you don’t rebound from a four-game losing streak.”
This year was a test for Nagy. And he sees himself becoming a better head coach because of it.
“What we always talk about is that complaints kill culture,” Nagy said. “People that complain, they kill culture. We don’t have a lot of complainers. We have guys who do their job and they worry about themselves.
“For me, the way I look at it is we need to use this. We had a good season the first year and we won, division champs and all that. And now, we have one that’s not as good. It wasn’t what our intentions were, which was to do a lot better.
“So now we’ve had a taste of both. What we all need to do — and what I’m going to do — is to reflect in so many different ways, as to how do use this not-so-good season to help us, to motivate us for the following year.”
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