Robert Mays and Nate Tice take a blowtorch to Nagy and Pace on the most recent Hoge and Jahns Podcast. This is a great listen, particularly in the dissection of Nagy's "offense", play installation, and playcalling. Essentially, Tice and Mays argue that Nagy's offense is a "hodgepodge" of plays assembled from other offenses and possesses no underlying coherence or governing philosophy. They label Nagy's scheme a "Diet Coke" version of other offenses because it borrows/incorporates plays (from Reid, Payton, Kubiak, etc) without understanding the rationale for calling them or the rules governing them. This situation is exposed in plays like the naked bootleg against the Steelers, where Nagy/Lazor clearly didn't understand how the Steelers defend the bootleg differently than many other teams. Mays and Tice also comment on the seemingly random nature of the Bears play sequencing wherein the playcaller appears to be going with something simply because they "like it" instead of selecting it due to its function within a larger strategic context or a personnel advantage.

Towards the end, there's also a solid evisceration of Pace's drafting strategy.

The whole 60-minute conversation is well worth a listen.

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Alright. I downloaded it for later.

You better be right for once.

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You know me like that.

Mays has the best NFL podcast series in the business.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Does Nate Tice have a pencil in his ear as well?

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Great podcast but they have to either mute Jahns or get rid of him completely. He's got that nasally, Hebrew voice that you just can't get past.

I believe Jahns went to St. Juliana grade school and Loyola High School

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Not sure where Hoge went, but I do know that he is the Special Team Coordinator at Mount Carmel.

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An unjust law is no law at all--St. Augustine of Hippo

Cause tried and true
I see the light in you
Oh, can you dig in my soul?
Could you smell my whole...
life?--Gener and Deaner

* Carmel Catholic High School, the shitty Carmel, actually they both kinda suck now.

Former Bear Jason McKie is the head coach of the Carmel football team. I'm curious to see what he can do there.

I'm pretty sure the oblivious Adam Jahns thinks Hoge is a coach for Mt. Carmel--he's mentioned this a few times on the podcast--and may be unaware that Carmel High School even exists.

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Whoops, I stand corrected. Same colors, one plays on the South Side and got a little help against Batavia last week to make the quarterfinals. The other one in Mundelein is indeed where Hoge is.

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An unjust law is no law at all--St. Augustine of Hippo

Cause tried and true
I see the light in you
Oh, can you dig in my soul?
Could you smell my whole...
life?--Gener and Deaner

I believe Jordan Lynch is the head coach at Mount Carmel now(and they have been underwhelming), I have no idea what Lenti did to get pushed out the door, seems strange.

Back to the content of the podcast. It cracked me up to hear them say that "The personnel seems thrown together out of mild desperation and there's no sense of how all the parts fit together right now."

This observation perfectly captures the Nagy offense for the entire duration of Nagy's coaching tenure with the Bears.

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Didn't they win state two years ago?

Aren't they in the final 8 this year?

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Thanks TM

I needed this

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Yeah but they lost 3 regular season games this year. Never would have saw that in the heyday

I’ve said for a couple years now (really starting with Nagys 2nd season) that he calls plays like someone who has no plan.. oddly enough Paces drafting is similar in that there doesn’t seem to be a clear cut cohesive or coherent plan. Just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.


So, sounds like I’d agree with a lot of their conclusions and they’d agree with many of mine.


That all being said.. I feel like most people with even minor working football knowledge should have felt this way for a while now. I know others on this board do for sure

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If the rule you followed lead you to this, of what use was the rule?

Yeah, I agree, but it's good to hear guys who watch the All 22s for a living verify this view and identify specific plays that illustrate the derivative, superficial, and random nature of Nagy's offense. I would also add the problem with Nagy isn't limited to the fact that he lacks a plan--it's also that he lacks both a philosophy and an ethos. There's no way his team can have an identity if Nagy doesn't have an understanding of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it as the team's leading offensive mind. And without an identity, it's impossible to build a team correctly, consistently create mismatches, and get full buy in from your players.

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Regarding the Pace issues. I believe the Bears are the oldest team in the league with a 2022 draft consisting of a 2nd, 3rd, two 5th's and a 7th round pick, plus very little cap space ( I guess that could change in 2022). Any new GM would have to be very creative. If they decided to keep Pace, he probably would keep kicking the can down the road by trading more future draft picks.

The Bears are going to have something like the 10th or 12th most cap space in 2022. Still, though, they're going to have a lot of holes to fill and are going to end up overpaying a bunch of veteran free agents.

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You can cover for poor drafting by throwing bad paper through free agency, but eventually it catches up to you as those free agents age. Several guys that got tons of playing time for the Bears last year at WR are out of the league, rarely do you see an offensive player that Pace has drafted get signed on elsewhere.

He likes to draft combine warriors with little college production, how's that working out?