Foles’ Monday Night Debacle Might Be The Close To This Chicago Bears Regime

Beknown to many, I am not a person who throws around extremities very often. I firmly believe that until you gather a sufficiently large sample size, it is ridiculous to even utter certain reactionary ideas. That being said, even I can say this with the utmost certainty: Monday Night’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams has all the makings as the nail in the coffin for this iteration of the Chicago Bears. Yes, I am aware of the massive cultural shift that took place in 2018, and yes, I am aware that had he-who-must-not-be-named made that crucial kick, the Chicago Bears would have been competing for a spot in the NFC Championship game (with those same Los Angeles Rams, interestingly). But the NFL is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league, and frankly, Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace have been deserving of the shoo ever since last season’s disaster against the New Orleans Saints.

Last night, all (and I do mean all) of the Bears’ problems came to a head — from Nagy’s schematic creativity seemingly being stolen by the monstars post-January 6th, 2019 to Ryan Pace’s foolish decisions. Schematically speaking, the Bears were like an intramural Division III team competing with the University of Alabama. It’s not just that they were idiotic in terms of their offensive gameplan (Toss to Cordarelle Patterson on 4th and 1, running into Aaron Donald instead of away from him, Cole Kmet’s limited playing time, Jimmy Graham being taken out in the red-zone, the list goes on and on) — It’s what the opposition was doing. Rams HC Sean McVay put forth offensive brilliance — jet sweeps, tosses, misdirection, bootlegs, angle the fullback one way only to pull a guard and gash the defense the other way. He. Was. Sensational. Meanwhile, Nagy frankly looked starstruck. It was as though after he saw the Rams offensive unpredictability, he froze and felt he just couldn’t compete.

But even more damning is Nagy’s year-to-year dropoff. In 2018, he was on the right side of part 1 in the schematic battle against McVay, and throughout the year, he was flawless. Play after play, he would flaunt his expertise in schematic creativity: he called a trick play that resulted in a touchdown for an offensive lineman in one game and dialed up a “Chicago Special” for a game-tying touchdown in another. Yet you look at him now, and it looks like two completely different football brains out there. It’s truly like Andy Reid’s game planning ability collapse to that of most high school coaches. I would like to think that Nagy can fix this, but I don’t think he can. When things have been this bad for this long, you just are what you are, aren’t you? If he could’ve fixed it, wouldn’t it have happened immediately following that loss to the New Orleans Saints?

But enough on Nagy. He’s only one guy. The players all share equal blame, right? Partially, but let’s take a closer look at the guy responsible for the personnel. Ryan Pace has done some good things with that defense, and he deserves a boatload of credit for that, but he has botched just about everything else. The offensive line was problematic last season, and he did nothing to fix it. The receivers are underwhelming as well, and he is unwilling to pay the only receiver — heck, the only player — who has been outstanding over the past year. Most egregious of all, he failed to get the quarterback situation right, let alone fix it. He wanted Trubisky, and it goes without saying, that’s played out terribly. He wanted a solid backup to Trubisky, and he chose Nick Foles, a Super Bowl MVP, yes, but a guy who currently has 6 touchdowns to 6 interceptions. Yet, most infuriating of all last night, he signed Ted Ginn Jr., who refused to field a single punt last night despite the 5 attempts he had at doing so - all of which ended up inside the 10-yard line.

Now, there is still reason for hope. After all, the Bears are 5–2, and if they can steal one of these next two games, they will be well-positioned to make the postseason. But that’s the ceiling of this team, a wild card spot, and when the threshold plummets that far — from Super Bowl to a wild card spot — changes need to be made. It’s not an indictment on the successes of this regime — those are still very valid, but there are certain adversities that you simply cannot overcome. The double-doink falls into that category. We saw Atlanta pull the plug on HC Dan Quinn and GM Thomas Dimitroff after the abysmal performances that followed their Super Bowl collapse, and it’s about high time we see the same with this iteration of the Chicago Bears.