What the hell happened to Matt Nagy and Sean McVay?
By John Buhler
Both Matt Nagy and Sean McVay were dominating the NFC a year ago. What in the hell happened to these two coaches’ teams in 2019?
It’s funny how much difference a year makes.
Last year, the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Rams won their divisions. The Bears won the NFC North for the first time since Jay Cutler rode that elliptical back in 2010. The Rams repeated in the NFC West for the first time since playing in St. Louis. Their two head coaches in Matt Nagy and Sean McVay were huge reasons for that.
Entering Week 11, both the Bears and Rams are likely to be on the outside looking in at a playoff berth in the deep NFC. Both teams find themselves in third place of their respective divisions. The Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings are better than the Bears, while the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks are above the Rams.
Nagy and McVay are still calling the shots with their respective teams, but these two playoff pretenders have gone a combined 9-9 in 10 weeks, with the 5-4 Rams being one game better than the 4-5 Bears.
For Nagy, he has run out of lipstick to put on Mitchell Trubisky. General manager Ryan Pace may think Trubisky is the pearl of swine, but Nagy can’t prevent his inherited signal-caller from turning into bacon. He’s no Charlotte, he’s no Spider-Man, he’s only a football coach.
For McVay, he hasn’t been able to hack his headset to speak in Jared Goff’s ear for every second his fourth-year quarterback in on the field. Goff has proven to be good at following directions, but can’t seem to think for himself when he isn’t given the answers to the test audibly. Gabe Kotter can only take his Sweathog so far.
In short, poor quarterback play has let both head coaches down. But there is a huge difference here, one that will save a coach’s reputation and one that will ruin another. Scheme.
Nagy is proving himself to be more adaptable in a bad situation, while McVay is steadfast to 11 personnel as Chip Kelly was to the up-tempo spread. No wonder Kelly is at UCLA these days.
Knowing that Trubisky is essentially Midwest Bortles, Nagy has to devise all sorts of creative ways to compensate for Pace passing on Deshaun Watson, who actually dominated the ACC, while Trubisky couldn’t start until Marquise Williams ran out of eligibility. If Nagy had a better quarterback, his team would be in playoff contention.
McVay was the cool kid at coaching school. He was bright, young, sharp and handsome. Everybody wanted to be him and if they couldn’t be him, they wanted to know him because that would get them a head coaching job. Just ask Zac Taylor and Kliff Kingsbury.
These two young head coaches have plenty of time to figure things out. To this point, all they’ve done is win their respective divisions, with McVay doing it twice and Nagy just last year. However, they’re not the first head coaches to have quick success in the NFC before things fell apart around them. Dan Quinn had his team up 28-3 in Super Bowl LI before his 2016 Falcons ran out of gas.
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At the end of the day, Nagy just needs a new quarterback and McVay needs to think outside of the 11 personnel box for once. If Nagy is stuck with Trubisky, he’ll go the way of Gary Kubiak with Matt Schaub. Should McVay stick to what he knows and nothing else, he’s similarly doomed.
In the NFL, it’s adapt or die. These young head coaches must change.