The Chicago Bears made shocking news on Monday as they hired Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy as their new head coach. The move comes after a swift weeklong search that involved six interviewed candidates with Nagy being the last.
Nagy has worked as an offensive coach his entire career for Andy Reid, and it was the Chiefs offensive output in their last five games that made Nagy an attractive name.
When Andy Reid took over as head coach of the Chiefs in 2013, Nagy was brought in as the team’s quarterbacks coach which he held until he was promoted to offensive coordinator for the last four games of this season. Once he took over, quarterback Alex Smith averaged 269 passing yards and had just one turnover in a three-game span.
The move to promote paid off as the Chiefs who had only three offensive touchdowns in three of the four losses before the promotion preceded to score 26 points or more following the move. In the four games following the Jets game, the Chiefs scored 26, 30, 29, 27 points with the last game of the season being played by mostly backups and a rookie quarterback.
With the AFC West division won and playoff seeding already determined, the Chiefs started rookie quarterback Pat Mahomes who was making his NFL debut.
Mahomes had a decent game throwing for 284 yards with just one interception against a Denver defense that was ranked fourth in the league for pass defense.
From a positions coach standpoint, the production produced by Smith from the quarterback position really raises Nagy’s value as a coach. From 2013, Smith averaged 20 touchdown passes and posted a quarterback rating over 91 in four of his five seasons with an NFL high quarterback rating of 104.7 this season.
Furthermore, Smith threw for a career-high in yards this season throwing for over 4000 yards for the first time in his career.
The biggest factor in the coaching hire for the Bears was to find a coach that could turn quarterback Mitchell Trubisky into an elite quarterback. The Chiefs offensive success this season and Alex Smith’s consistent play made him the Bears target head coach. General manager Ryan Pace found his quarterback last season and now has his head coach for next season. Any head coaching hire is questionable, but its the resume of the newly head coach that provides hope and optimism which the Bears have now.
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